It's unfortunate that so few of us have seen this movie. It's a biopic of Falcone and his friend and colleague, Paolo Borsellino, two antimafia judges who secured important convictions of Sicilian organized crime figures in Palermo in the 1980s. Both were assassinated by the Mafia and have become Italian heroes. The film tracks their investigations and subsequent trials from 1980 until 1992, the year of their deaths. I think it's well worth your time.
Writer-director Giuseppe Ferrara dramatizes the extreme risks these men took. They could hardly have overlooked the dangers they faced, since so many of their colleagues were murdered along the way. Falcone's premonitions of his own death are illustrated by scenes from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal in which he imagines himself playing chess with death. Another point made by the filmmakers is that Falcone and Borsellino had to fight not only the Mafia but the corruption of their superiors and of the political leadership of Italy, who seemed to want to protect the mob whenever they could.
The movie has high production values and moves along quite briskly, with plenty of violence to keep us all entertained. Michele Placido and Giancarlo Giannini give their usual fine performances as Falcone and Borsellino respectively. However, I have two words of warning. First, there are dozens of characters on both sides of the law, most played by unfamiliar actors (to me, at least). It's difficult to keep them all straight. Secondly, there are many intertitles, some of which summarize events that take place off-screen. In the subtitled version I saw, these were not translated. (Remember, pentito = informant.) For these reasons, if you're not familiar with these events, I recommend that you read a brief summary such as that found in Falcone's Wikipedia entry, before you watch the film. I wished that I had.
Writer-director Giuseppe Ferrara dramatizes the extreme risks these men took. They could hardly have overlooked the dangers they faced, since so many of their colleagues were murdered along the way. Falcone's premonitions of his own death are illustrated by scenes from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal in which he imagines himself playing chess with death. Another point made by the filmmakers is that Falcone and Borsellino had to fight not only the Mafia but the corruption of their superiors and of the political leadership of Italy, who seemed to want to protect the mob whenever they could.
The movie has high production values and moves along quite briskly, with plenty of violence to keep us all entertained. Michele Placido and Giancarlo Giannini give their usual fine performances as Falcone and Borsellino respectively. However, I have two words of warning. First, there are dozens of characters on both sides of the law, most played by unfamiliar actors (to me, at least). It's difficult to keep them all straight. Secondly, there are many intertitles, some of which summarize events that take place off-screen. In the subtitled version I saw, these were not translated. (Remember, pentito = informant.) For these reasons, if you're not familiar with these events, I recommend that you read a brief summary such as that found in Falcone's Wikipedia entry, before you watch the film. I wished that I had.
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