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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It has its moments, November 10, 2007
This review is from: Crime Novel ( Romanzo criminale ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ] (DVD)
I rented this movie from the local store. It's in NTSC format not PAL as listed on Amazon.
The plot has great potential but the director could not exploit it. The movie had all the good elements such as betrayal, complicated and twisted conspiracies, love, loyalty, friendship, shooting and bombing. However each scene happened so quickly and ended abruptly that I did not have time to absorb it. As result, I did not felt sympathetic for the girlfriend of Ice (the gang leader at the end of the movie). She's pregnant with him but she did not know his real career until he was busted by the police.
The action scenes were not shot in close-ups and they ended very quickly too. As a result, I did not feel emotional.
It's still worth watching once. For this kind of genre, I prefer the Departed.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HOW GODCHILDREN GET RID OF GODFATHERS, May 14, 2007
This review is from: Crime Novel ( Romanzo criminale ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ] (DVD)
Michele Placido, the director and co-writer of ROMANZO CRIMINALE, was mostly known as an actor - he starred in nearly one hundred films since 1972 - before starting to direct movies in 1990. ROMANZO CRIMINALE, his 8th movie, earned eight David di Donatello awards (The Italian equivalent to the Oscars) in 2006.
ROMANZO CRIMINALE (150 minutes) describes the lives and deaths of the members of a criminal organisation that ruled the underworld of the city of Rome in the seventies and the eighties. Il Freddo (The Cold), Dandi (The Dandy) and Libano (The Libanese) were friends from their childhood on. After having separately spent several years in jail, they decide, with a few friends, to form a new organisation in Rome and to get rid of the local bosses. Then, they accept to work with the Sicilian mafia that will provide them with drugs. These new hoodlums are nihilist, brutal but efficacious. They are even unofficially used by the Italian government to find the hideouts of the members of the Red Brigads.
If you liked the Godfather saga, ROMANZO CRIMINALE is definitively a movie for you. There are a lot of very interesting supporting roles in it and the main actors, specially Kim The Keys to the House Rossi Stuart, are top-notch. Highly recommended.
A DVD zone your library.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Romanzo Criminale, August 5, 2008
This review is from: Crime Novel ( Romanzo criminale ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ] (DVD)
Don't be mislead by the tacky cover. Although this begins as a cheaper, poorer quality version of The Godfather, it develops into to a quite sophisticated and controversial take on Italian crime and politics. A previous (UK) reviewer laments the fact that the characters were cheap, humourless scumbags compared to the more likeable and funny murderers of Goodfellas. Well, that's because Hollywood, even at its best, will usually make its main characters sympathetic, whereas here we see the characters as they are - ruthless, fairly stupid, nasty, brutal and unpleasant. Killers are like that. Based on real events and ultimately worthwhile, the film certainly made me want to read the book it's based on and find out more about the issues raised here. Entertaining too.
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