Last Updated on October 10, 2020 by rob
Nino (Giuliano Gemma) a former car thief gone straight and now a Palermo coffee stall owner finds himself marked for assassination by the Mafia after being suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of a prominent lawyer’s wife. With the help of his best friend, a pickpocket named Colicchia (Tano Cimarosa) and the reluctant assistance of Platamonte (Michele Placido) a greedy hitman ordered by the mob to kill Nino but willing to walk away in exchange for a big payoff, Nino attempts to bribe his way out of trouble. But to raise the money demanded by Platamonte means returning to a life of crime and that will tear his family apart.
Impressive and unpredictably plotted crime drama with as sharp an eye for its hardscrabble characters as its all too persuasive portrait of the kickbacks and corruption law-abiding people have to swallow in order to survive on the street. Gemma’s performance as Nino doesn’t come across as particularly charismatic but does convey a believable, hard-bitten desperation and he certainly has our sympathy once it’s revealed that he’s been targeted for death for no other reason than that one of the tiny coffee cups from his street stall was found at the scene of the kidnapping. Even better is Michele Placido’s hitman, Antonio Platamonte; a convincing portrait of a poor schlub desperate for money to feed his own starving family and who tries to exploit Nino for his own ends.
Platamonte is basically what Nino will become – a frightened man permanently in servitude to the Mafia – if he can’t figure a way out of his situation. Eleonora Giorgi, who was so sexy and sultry in the excellent Young, Violent And Dangerous (1976) gives a soulful performance as Nino’s wife Lucia and it’s her convincing chemistry with Gemma that’s the reason we root for him to succeed (in a double twist climax no less, capped by a poignant, evocative coda on a bleak, misty hillside). Damiano’s direction slowly but surely ratchets up the tension and finds a nifty visual metaphor for Nino’s precarious position in the mordant sight of his humble coffee stall repeatedly changing ownership as it gradually falls into the hands of organised crime.
When Nino gets to confront the mysterious kingpin behind the murders we feel sure that’s the end of him. But to our surprise Nino is allowed to walk away. The price of his freedom? A lifetime of servitude to the Mafia. In this way the film is grimly, depressingly effective in the way it depicts the tendrils of criminality seeping first into business and then – in a chilling sequence as an assassin visits Nino’s home – the family itself. The entrapment of decent people compromised and corrupted is superbly conveyed (not least by Ennio Guarnieri’s atmospheric cinematography) and the events that follow not only feature some excellent character reversals but allow writer/director Damiani to show his sympathy for the common man as Nino and Platamonte attempt to throw off their shackles. Gripping and intelligent this is a crime thriller well worth checking out.
