For anyone who appreciates black humor and Italian 'gialli', and by that I mean the real Italian thing, not the many glossy, racy flicks with the beautiful girl, films which are more trashy than the most 'American' of Hollywood action films... then this is a refreshing return to form. Bisio plays a schizophrenic bodyguard-cum-detective (a 'gorilla' in Italian is a minder) who always finds himself, seemingly against his will, slap bang in the middle of the action. The two characters represented by his split personality are polar opposites, the only thing they agree on is that they leave each other notes to fill in the missing pieces when one takes over from the other. The film opens with what is supposedly Gorilla's last spat with the vile criminal underclass, but of course things don't go the Gorilla's way; an incidental meeting with a feisty Stefania Rocca, who works at a social center for immigrants, throws him right into a complicated tale of exploitation, prostitution, illegal immigration and murder. The themes dealt with couldn't be more relevant, though they are considered from a different point of view to what we are always reading about in the papers about waves of immigrants invading the country. This film touches sensitively on the issues hidden from the newsroom cameras. The whole tale is framed by Gorilla's relationship with an aging American actor, played by Ernest Borgnine, brought to Italy to promote a new video game based on the cowboy films of old which he once appeared in. An initially conflictual relationship, the two surprisingly find that they both have something that the other needs, and that how the world sees us isn't set in stone. Borgnine's character has some interesting lines on how older people / stars are viewed and treated. Excellent acting from all the main actors, especially Rocca, admirable not just for her expressive and persuasive acting, but also for her refusal to bow to the demands of an industry led more by the plastic surgeon's scalpel than the director's hand. When I went to see this film it was being shown in the smallest of screening rooms in the cinema... I hope that it will get 'promoted' to the more spacious parts of the cinema, and that it is just one film in a new wave of genuine Italian detective films.
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belucy6 February 2006
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steven-36511 November 2006I loved this film, it was well-made, funny, action-packed, and uniquely Italian. The bodyguard's two personalities mean that parts of it are comically botched but others are very slick and sophisticated. Highlights in the film: when he wakes up and realises his other personality scored with Vera, when it "wasn't even his turn", and when he talks to himself in the mirror while his reflection talks back and shaves his head repeatedly-it's surreal but there are some great, typical "cop" moments like the brothel raid which keep it grounded in some kind of reality. Indeed this film will come as a revelation to many who have a candy-coated image of Italy, including the scene where Gorilla nearly confronts a fascist. Including Ernest Borgnine as an ageing US actor is a stroke of genius-his bastardised Italian is barely understandable at times, but always very amusing. I recommend this to anyone, but especially Italians, or people who know the language quite well like me. I'm not being elitist or anything but there are some jokes and bits of heavily-accented dialogue that you can only understand if you've got that bi-cultural/bilingual knowledge.