Nice to see the new year being welcomed in by a the relase of a bona-fide Italian crime movie, Michele Placido’s Vallanzasca – Gli angeli del male. Placido, of course, was the guy behind the excellent Romanzo criminale back in 2005, and this looks to be another mixture of social drama, history, seventies fashions and action. I likee! According to Cineuropa, which covered the film when it was shown at the Venice Festival:
After last year’s storm over The Big Dream, Michele Placido presented his Vallanzasca – The Angels of Evil out of competition today at the Mostra, once again attracting controversy.
Relatives of the policemen killed by the criminal who served as inspiration for the film have voiced their objections in a major daily newspaper. Placido defended himself at the press conference: “People should know what has happened in Italy over the years. False moralism reigns in this country. I respect the pain of the victims’ families. But Vallanzasca is paying for his offences: he is one of the few still in prison. There are people who sit in Parliament who are worse than Vallanzasca”.
The film’s star Kim Rossi Stuart was very eager about the project and wonderfully captures Renato Vallanzasca’s dark charm, after closely observing him for months. It centres on the gang who terrorised Milan and the whole of Italy in the 1970s with robberies, kidnappings and murders.
It is filmed in a Scorsese-like style (that of Goodfellas and Casino) with magnificent cinematography by Arnaldo Catinari and a first-rate international cast including Paz Vega, Moritz Bleibtreu, Valeria Solarino and Filippo Timi.
The director explained: “The mystery of this character’s charm lies in his physical beauty, in the myth constructed by the press. Vallanzasca is an instinctively friendly and light-hearted person who can win people over even now, and underneath all this is a criminal. There lies the whole meaning of the film”.
The film offers 125 adrenaline-filled minutes, with lots of action, 1970s-style shoot-outs, prison fights, pivotal scenes, revenge and baroque disembowelments in slow motion. However, the similarities with hit film Romanzo criminale (in which Rossi Stuart also starred) are merely directorial: here the characters surrounding the gang leader have less depth and there are fewer direct references to politics and the many mysteries of Italian criminality.
Turned down by Rai Cinema and Medusa, the film was co-produced by Fox and French company Babe Films. It will be released in Italian theatres on December 17.
It has come out in just under 300 cinemas, which is a decent run, and has done OK at the box office, though not nearly as well as the rush of Italian comedies that are around at the moment have done.