Robbing Mussolini

A scoundrel story following good neo-noir fashion with leading ladies Isabella Ferrari in black as the falling regime, and Matilda de Angelis in red as the new era, symbolizing the transition of power in 1945 Italy. The Italian ragtag protagonists, as it were, promote themselves from petty black market affairs to try to get rich quick by grabbing no less than a truckload of Mussolini's gold. Go big or go home, as they say. The evil Nazis and Fascists in their fancy uniforms are stereotypically mostly represented in a rather unpleasant light lacking only horns, so not much guesswork is required in deciding which party to root for. Not much in the way of blood and gore, just a few gunfights and one car chase, but a fair story to while away an hour and a half. The opening and closing credits are played together with anachronistic "Paint it Black" (Tutto Nero in Italian, translates as Everything Black) which kind of makes sense in the end remembering the Fascists' black shirts. In the way of gore, there are more plentiful war films than this with a Netflix TV-MA rating. Anyways, a modern dissolution of Italy's fascist past not sinking to the level of preaching.

The quality of the cinematics is good and the historical details too. The faces all match the characters and the acting is good - all but for Castellitto Jr who is kind of unwatchable so bad he is this spoiled brat! The best character who made the movie interesting is Maccio's. The best acting is that of the fascist general, who is a new face for me in Italian cinema, but very interesting. The song arrangements were also good and, let's say, 'innovative classics'! A bit predictable development and ending, but still better than the usual action hollywood movies of the past 15 years. I feel that there are excess of Nazi based movies in the history of cinema and too few Fascist based movies because of one big reason: with the Nazis, hollywood can show Americans fighting evil, but with Fascist they would have to acknowledge the big role of Socialist freedom fighters! Usual obscurantist hypocrisy.

Sometimes a movie leaves you with some thoughts to think about, the other times it leaves you with nothing, as if you've never watched a movie at all. Rapiniamo il Duce is sadly closer to the latter but not without its buts too. Ever since I started learning Italian, their movies were mostly misses for me; it's an expressive language and for the most part I just couldn't grab what the characters are saying - and I was just reading the subtitles! - but this one was different. Maybe because it was produced for Netflix but I just didn't feel like it was really made for Italians and that's on the negative side actually. The whole movie seems like an American remake but with an all-Italian cast and that dissonance is palpable starting the first minutes. On the positive side though Rapiniamo il Duce is a stylish, fast-paced heist drama with fantastic inclusions of animated segments and 1940s appropriate soundtrack but it lacks consistency and the setting (last days of WWII) is only there to bring a feeling of urgency into narrative, not to be a leading vehicle for it. Main characters are no names that we know little to nothing about and therefore are not capable to empathize with anyone - the story plays out so fast it hasn't got time to draw backstories longer than a sentence or a five second clip and that rush is all over the place. The jokes would've been a well-fitting addition and probably the life saver for the movie but they don't exist here as well. All in all this is a well-crafted movie that looks marvelous on paper, as a comic book adaptation but as a standalone feature it is as lifeless as its main characters.

Don't take this so seriously and don't expect too much. The actors delivered a very good performance. The substance of the story lacks and some cheesy holes let's questions open. The spoken language is cool and the music remembers at times the war movies of the sixties. I don't think this movie is based on true events. The way they attacked the head quarter was really too easy to get in. The costumes and sceneries were well created. Nice landscapes at the end and who knows if there wil ever be a sequel. Finally I spent anyway an entertaining time cause I have for the moment really not more options to see on Netflix. 5/10.