| RATING: | 60% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Naturalistic and unglamorous portrayal of the Naples' Camorra where violence can suddenly erupt at any moment and for well understood reasons. The docudrama desire here is to show a world unlike that shown in a typical Hollywood movie by eliminating any suspense. This also has the unfortunate effect of removing any real narrative drive and of not answering fundamental questions such as the Why, rather than what is shown here: The How and the What.
Crucially, moreover, the cinéma vérité style has an emotionally distancing effect that allows for little empathy for the characters and their political and cultural predicament. The five plot strands exacerbate this and do not integrate well – they seem merely designed to make the film longer and wider without making it deeper.
Having said all that, the performances are as committed as they need to be for this breed of tough drama. The kind of drama that blows the lid on the fallacy of With Us or Against Us – a belief that, in the long run, can only serve to get people killed.
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