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Rating: When in 1997 "Tre uomini e una gamba" hit the theaters, we were all caught a bit off guard. After years of vanzinate, Christmas holidays, and time travels, we had all gotten used to chuckling and forgotten how to laugh. We believed that to laugh, you needed a mountain of assorted obscenities, cleverly packaged vulgarity, nudity, and incompetent actors. We were convinced that the pinnacle of Italian comedy was Massimo Boldi.
In reality, those shady figures (Boldi, De Sica, the Vanzinas) are still working and still causing damage, but "Tre uomini e una gamba," let's be honest, made us happy. Because finally, you could pay for the ticket knowing you wouldn’t curse the cast and production as you left the theater, because you knew you would laugh your head off without enduring the usual overly predictable vulgarities.
"Tre uomini e una gamba" marks the cinematic debut of Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo, two Lombards and a Sicilian turned Madonnina. By 1997, they were already very famous. Their ironic and sharp characterizations were already cult thanks to the television intelligence of the Gialappa's Band. On "Mai dire Goal," they showcased a range of gags and sketches worthy of the best local comedians: the Swiss telenovela (Rezzonico & C.), the incompetent Bulgarian acrobats, amusing Sardinian peddlers, the masochist Tafazzi, the DJ Johnny Glamour. In all fairness, they had already appeared on a show by Paolo Rossi, "Su la testa!," where they showcased two of their most successful comedic numbers: the bus traveler without a ticket and the long sketch of the old men in the park.
They took a big step into the world of cinema, albeit with a thousand doubts and risks. Because as it is known, few cabaret artists smoothly transition from theater (or television) to cinema. Very few: Carlo Verdone, Massimo Troisi, Antonio Albanese, some time ago Roberto Benigni. However, all the skeptics and critics will be proven wrong: "Tre uomini e una gamba" is a good film, and that's not a small thing. Beneath the seemingly simple structure of a road movie (a journey from Milan to Gallipoli), a series of occasionally impressive sketches and jokes intersect. With a pleasantly surprising element: the absence of vulgarity. Not even hinted at, not even implied. Some swear words here and there, much skill in connecting comedic scenes with the inevitable screenplay transitions, and even some melancholic moments (the wait in the hospital where Giacomo is hospitalized).
Not a masterpiece, of course, not a pillar of national comedy (those are words that are spared for other occasions), some dull moments and some characters a bit superfluous and poorly outlined (the small participation of Luciana Littizzetto, the arrogant Carlo Croccolo, nothing fundamental), a shaky screenplay and an approximate direction, but all that was more than predictable. However, there are at least a dozen blatantly funny situations in the middle, and three respectable interludes: the first, an explicit Tarantino parody (it's a shame the trio later wanted to make an entire film on it, "La leggenda di Al, John e Jack"); the second, the famous bus ticket one, a sort of mockery of De Sica's and Rossellini's neorealist cinema; the third, the vampire one, the least successful, undoubtedly funny, but it runs out of steam after a few minutes (you know how it will end, you immediately understand where it's going).
And among beautiful sequences and significant comedic insights, a series of references that, for once, do not burden the plot: the water acrobatics typical of Esther Williams, the football match on the beach like Salvatores' "Marrakech Express," and the theft of the leg from a group of colored bricklayers disguised with masks of some famous Italian politicians, an evident parody of Bigelow's "Point Break."
Even musically speaking, the film is not bad, but there's a scene where Giovanni, exasperated, tries to insert a cassette during the trip that doesn't provoke strange emotions (it's one of the funniest sequences of the entire film): first, he turns off a kind of very intense hard rock, then cries on “Luci a San Siro” by Roberto Vecchioni before throwing “Anima mia” by Cugini di Campagna out of the car window, and finally he breaks down with the aria “Pagliacci.” A scene like many others? No, considering that on "Cineforum" (a specialized cinema magazine), critic Anton Giulio Mancino admonishes the three actor-directors for their evident renunciation of any kind of social and political satire: “… nor is it enough to achieve such a purpose to throw the Cugini di Campagna's tape with the hit-revival “Anima Mia” out the car window (and with it the petty bourgeois nostalgia of the sixties or post-sixties left-wing) and invent Transylvanian leaguers”
The film made a lot of money (40 billion old lire!), it remains a mystery why the subsequent films by the trio, despite the consistently high public success, have declined in comedy and plot construction. Between the pedantic and new-age visions of "Così è la vita" and the banality of "Tu la conosci Claudia?," only "Chiedimi se sono felice" attempts to echo the splendor of the debut. But there’s nothing to do: "Tre uomini e una gamba," even in its simplicity and its not being exceptional, remains a hilariously exceptional film.
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