This stripped-down drama about a Calabrian family involved in organised crime eschews the operatic violence of classic American gangster movies and the arty flash of recent Italian mafia pics such as Gomorra. Instead, it’s a film where characters exchange terse words in grotty bars and back rooms, or just glower meaningfully at each other, before walking into fatal traps at night down dark alleys and inky corridors. All of which to underscore the grubby, flat pointlessness of the endless blood feuds which, in this instance, entangle three brothers, their wives and their children in yet another wash-rinse-repeat cycle of violence.
Marco Leonardi (who was once the teen Toto in Cinema Paradiso) plays the most ruthless sibling through sleepy, smiling eyes, opposite Peppino Mazzotta as the bespectacled straight one and Fabrizio Ferracane as the enigmatic eldest, a man who just wants to raise his only son and herd of goats in peace. The film’s long low hum of quiet pays off with an aptly shocking climax.
