Michele Placido’s (Romanzo Criminale) bio-pic of Renato Vallanzasca plays out like an Italian Mesrine, charting the rise and fall of the legendary underworld figure. In the 1980s, Vallanzasca (the enigmatic Rossi Stuart, Libero) worked his way to the top of Milan’s crime scene, using brute force to despatch his rivals and pulling off a series of daring robberies.
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Reviews
Empire Magazine
David Parkinson
"Placido strings events together rather than delving into Vallanzasca’s psyche or placing the Banda della Comasina in its socio-political context … this is slick instead of steely and in thrall instead of enthralling."
01/05/2011
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The Evening Standard
Derek Malcolm
"If it falls short of either Gomorrah or A Prophet, it is an above average prison thriller..."
27/05/2011
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The New York Times
Roderick Conway Morris
"...accused of glorifying its subject [the film does not] give enough sense of the society of those times outside this criminal gang, and the violence, though no doubt reflecting reality, is not for the squeamish."
09/09/2010
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The Scotsman
Siobhan Synnot
"Thick with the details of murders, kidnappings and scores of armed robberies, it's a slick narrative bursting with charisma and bloody action. What it isn't, however, is terribly truthful."
24/05/2011
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Time Out
David Jenkins
"…terrible orch-rock soundtrack aside, it makes for an engrossing if hollow romp."
26/06/2011
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Total Film
Tom Dawson
"...the screenplay – the work of six writers – offers little psychological insight or socio-political context for its subject’s crime sprees."
18/05/2011
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Variety
Boyd Van Hoeij
"Ironically deficient in both directorial daring and insight."
30/09/2010
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The Times
Wendy Ide
"Muddled, rambling and contradictory, the film is like a petty criminal who can’t get his alibi straight. It relies on choppy montages of cocaine, liquor and recklessly brandished sub- machineguns in lieu of genuine narrative energy but betrays a sentimental nostalgia for a past era when a man could walk into a bank with a gun and become something approaching a star."
27/05/2011
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
"It relies on Scorsese-derived clichés — including cinema’s umpteenth montage of crooks throwing money around and bingeing on cocaine — and Rossi Stuart’s ferocity isn’t underpinned by deeper charisma."
29/05/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
David Gritten
"...just one damned thing after another. "
26/05/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
"…much less good [Michele Placido’s Romanzo Criminale] , and surprisingly poor on the larger social context."
29/05/2011
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
"My favourite sentence: 'It emerged that no one, even a woman in Canada who believed she was having a relationship with Amina, had ever spoken to her'."
26/05/2011
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
"It's a bit of a plod, violent and overlong, from which we learn only this: even the Italians dressed badly in the 1970s."
27/05/2011
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The Daily Mail
The Daily Mail
"…long, extremely violent and obstinately unilluminating … it makes two hours feel like four. Several of my fellow-critics walked out, after looking first bored and then baffled, while others took the opportunity to catch up on their sleep. I can’t say I blamed them. "
27/05/2011
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