Author's judgement: 2/5
History of gangsters in the Italian style, as we have been accustomed to seeing for some time now. This is the film of the week: Lo ruthless directed and screenplayed by Renato De Maria and with the usual Riccardo Scamarcio as the main protagonist. We are in the middle of the 80s, in Milan which even before drinking was the city where to live and survive, especially for the many (national) immigrants who were looking for work and a new life there. Among them, even those who have instead sought and found fortune in a criminal career, such as the well-known boss who inspired the novel. This is the story, taken from the novel Manager caliber 9 by Pietro Colaprico and Luca Fazzo.
Let's say right away that the film would not deserve more attention than usual when compared to other "illustrious" precedents of the same genre. Like it or not, but Gomorrah and Crime novel have made school and accustomed the public, both in cinemas and in front of the small screen, to a narrative alphabet that is now well-established and certainly successful. In this case, we are faced with a hybrid that fails to combine that type of cinematic story with a new and different interpretation. Everything appears too simple, too much already seen in the dynamics, in the characterization of the characters, in the settings. It is well known that the underworld, the 'Ndrangheta, the Camorra and the mafia were not just a matter of the southern regions of the country and that all the possible and worst applications of organized criminal violence could have taken root in the Lombard capital is certainly not new.
For all the rest this film does not say and does not add anything interesting in the national cinematographic gangster narration. The only note worthy of merit is the great attention to detail of the scenes, in the choice of characters, in reliably and plausibly reproducing the story you want to tell. Scamarcio, now present everywhere, seems to want to carve out a particular place in this characterization of a tough guy but he can't: in his eyes you never catch that spark of pure wickedness that other actors are able to offer instead. But the public likes it and that seems to be enough to use it in all ways.
Closed the strictly film part, a separate chapter opens instead on the distribution part of the "film" (since it is now completely disused). Lo spietato, produced by Angelo Barbagallo in collaboration with Rai Cinema, was in theaters for just three days, with the philosophy of the "event film", to then go directly to distribution on the streaming platform Netflix starting next April 19th. First of all, a small detail should be observed: for those who go to cinemas, the cost of the ticket for this kind of film is 30% higher than usual and this certainly does not seem like a good policy of incentive to go to the cinema. Conversely, it almost seems like an invitation to see it through streaming where, with the same amount, you can also see many other more or less interesting things.
After all, the same production and distribution policy already had a highly prestigious precedent with Rome by Alfonso Cuaron. In this circumstance, however, we are talking about a product that has not by chance won Oscars and other important awards and this does not seem to be the case. It remains to understand the logic of a production that obtains public funding (for this film it is a matter of 430 thousand Euros from the Apulia Film Commission, the region where all the exterior scenes were filmed) to create a product mainly destined for the streaming platform instead of in the halls. There is much discussion about why and wherefore Italian cinema suffers: this too is a topic to reflect on. He claimed it just two days ago Francesco Rutelli, president of ANICA, “La nostra audiovisual industry must do its part: better products…”. Precisely!
