The last few years we’ve run quite a few of reviews of Italian movies about mobsters and the Mafia. The films were made in the ’70s and early ’80s during the height of Italian cinema. They showed a dangerous time in the country’s history when organized crime controlled everything and the blood flowed freely in the streets during underworld power struggles. What about the Italy of the 21st Century? Can a recent mobster film have the same impact as the classic era? Suburra is based off a true story of what happened in Rome when they were planning on turning a harbor neighborhood into the Italian Las Vegas. Before we get too deep into this review, this movie is not an edited down version of the series Suburra: Blood on Rome that’s currently on Netflix. This movie is the original film that came out in 2015 and based on the novel from 2013 that’s based on a true story that happened around 2011. Suburra is epic in its approach to what happened when mobsters, politicians, real estate developers and the Vatican wanted a piece of the casino action.
Filippo Malgradi (World War Z’s Pierfrancesco Favino) is part of a group in the Italian parliament that’s pushing through a bill that will turn the harbor-side area of Ostia in the massive casino complex. It will be the Las Vegas of Europe. This project is quietly getting back from The Vatican’s clergy in charge of investment. While he seems like a sensible uptight family man, Malgradi heads over to a hotel to party with Sabrina and Jelena. Malgradi had requested Sabrina (Giulia Elettra Gorietti) find him an underaged gal for their night of debauchery that involved breaking out the party favors. The carnality comes to an abrupt stop when Jelena parties out of her weight class. Malgradi flees the hotel room and has Sabrina clean up the mess. This doesn’t go well since she calls her pal Spadino (Giacomo Ferrara) to help her dump the corpse. He’s extremely mobster connected and drops by Malgradi’s office to blackmail the politician. The guy doesn’t want to be exposed, but instead of dealing with the hood, he gets a favor from Number 8 (Alessandro Borghi) to just scare the hood. Number 8 is part of the Ostia project, so he owes Malgradi a favor. Number 8 goes the extra mile and eliminates the problem. Except he makes the problem worse since Spadino’s brother is Manfredi Anacleti, a serious is mobster who wants revenge and might destroy the new Vegas deal. The only thing that might keep this situation from crashing down is a nice old man nicknamed The Samurai (Who Killed Pasolini?‘s Claudio Amendola). He has been quietly setting up everything from getting property through Number 8 to arranging the Vatican funding. Also doesn’t hurt that he’s also a stone-cold killer. Will they get the casino built or will the streets of Rome run red with blood from the mobsters?
Suburra is a criminal masterpiece. If you love The Sopranos, Goodfellas and The Godfather, you need to see how they make a Mafia film in the Old Country. Director Stefano Solima (Sicario: Day of the Soldado) makes a tight film that keeps up the action while not confusing us too much with the twisted plot of real estate and revenge. The mobster actors are properly menacing. Manfredi is introduced in a crowded house of kids. He explains how things are going to go with a character whose father died with a massive debt. It’s not the usual mobster shakedown moment since Manfredi is butchering a lamb as he gives out the arrangement. You know he means business as the cleaver comes down. The Samurai seems like a sweet guy who just wants to smooth things over, but we also see how he is more than in capable of taking care of business. You don’t want to mess with any of these people. The ending of the film is violent and destructive. Besides bullets flying all around Rome, one of the characters ends up getting chewed apart by a dog. This is not a cute tale of how mobsters do business even with the Church’s money behind the project. Suburra goes to the extreme as it depicts how the dreams of casino riches can cause everything to go out of control.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. They transfer brings out the beauty of the various spots around Rome on wet nights. The Audio is DTS-HD MA 5.1 and LPCM 2.0. Both tracks are in Italian. The movie is subtitled in English.
The Making of Suburra (127:34) is a feature length documentary that goes deep into the film’s production. We learn how it took over a year to complete the script as they had to peel off and alter characters from the book. It’s easy to see how they could also turn the book into a miniseries. They also talk about the film was shooting when there was a series of arrests based on public figures working for the Mafia. We learn about the various dialects being used by characters in the film. The documentary is subtitled in English.
Production Gallery (10:07) has numerous press photos and behind the scenes shots.
Teaser Trailer (1:12) is all about the waters flowing around Rome before flashes of the ugliness to come.
Theatrical Trailer (1:26) sets up the new Vegas and the cost of construction.
Unearthed Films present Suburra. Directed by Stefano Sollima. Screenplay by Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia, Carlo Bonini & Giancarlo De Cataldo. Starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Elio Germano, Claudio Amendola, Alessandro Borghi, Greta Scarano, Giulia Elettra Gorietti, Adamo Dionisi, Giacomo Ferrara, Antonello Fassari and Jean-Hugues Anglade. Running Time: 134 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: September 26, 2023.
