Suburra

Every now and then, I watch something that leaves me speechless. I’m so bewitched – in a good way – that I’m completely smitten. I had this exact feeling after watching the contemporary gangster movie Suburra. The harsh fates of individual characters of different standings are connected by a monstrous construction of a future complex with a casino on the edge of Rome in such a precise way that I was dumbstruck. The directors have skillfully incorporated interesting characters into the vicious cycle of the mafia history and by doing so, they closed an important chapter of the contemporary Italian underground. Some of the scenes were more brutal, some of them less. But all of them were predominated by this disgusting loss of humanity that was always supported by a strange unearthly music of the French band M38 and it amplified the entire story, which felt as if it was happening on a different planet altogether. (08/08/2016)

Weird movie. Nice stylization, amazing soundtrack (the best of the year!), wild sex and interesting narrative style, but there were a few things that bothered me. The running time is excessive, there is no main character, only supporting characters, and unless I have someone to root for, a movie can't keep me glued to my seat. Violence and action were also scarce here. A decent gangster flick. Probably not my cup of tea. 60%. (29/12/2015)

It’s an audio-visually over-stylized, soft-spoken, yet more than eloquent fresco about the dark side of the eternal city that manages a quantum of characters, unprecedented violence, and metaphorical parables. Some of the threads could still use an extra knot at the end, but it is still an intense and exhausting viewing experience in the best sense. (16/01/2017)

A confident European genre film that may not offer the cool heroes or the polished scripts of its classic overseas competitors, but it’s nonetheless an example of wildly essential modern filmmaking that ignores convention and serves up such an audiovisual feast that it fully fills every second of its 130-minute runtime. I enjoyed the relentless pace, the explicit sex scenes and the rather naturalistic and believable brutality, and I really liked the work with the non-native music, which paradoxically gave the film an even more distinctive character in some scenes. The story is spread out among a large cast of characters, not a single one of whom an average viewer of sound mind could sympathise with or root for, but the narrative is extremely consistent and the editor has done an excellent job. A very big surprise, our cinema has a new model in Europe, where creative inspiration doesn't mean complete sci-fi – at least so I wish... 85% (11/01/2016)

A film blurring the boundaries between concepts such as power, corruption, the church, good intentions, the mafia, usurious gangs, politics, interests, small/large fish, money, etc. Sollima continues in a style he has already successfully used in the Gomorrah series, and so this Gordian knot of destinies from the far side of Rome on the other side of Rome leads confidently and in terms of style towards a complex criminal movie. In this respect it can't deny "gomorrah's roots "(whether book, serial or movie). Like the influence of the duo Tropa de Elite or The Wire. A well-thought-out script (perhaps only the indicated church line was unused and therefore pointless), the actors, the hypnotic camera and the Martinez’s soundtrack, all this is at the highest level. The fact that it is "only" a kind of pilot for the upcoming series. It is a crime series that is one of the best ever created in this genre in recent years. And in this genre department a lot of amazing staff have been done. (02/01/2016)