Checco Zalone
Tolo Tolo

The feeling is that it will end up dividing, in the most banal way possible. Between right and left.

Because this time Zalone talks about Africa and migrants, as well as Italy and Italians. Italianisms. He makes a more structured film, with a more accurate narrative (born from an idea of Virzì, who is a co-screenwriter), current affairs insights, war scenarios, and deserts. Prisons and boats.

The ambition is purely oblique, almost a preterition. While mocking Africa's problems, I throw them in your face. The range of possibilities is varied, Zalone has always played the indifferent Italian and here he easily spits on the migrants' problems, as he is always focused only on himself. Some ideas are good, for example juxtaposing the hell of Italian taxes with the hell of African poverty. Our man, rather than return and pay his debts, exclaims: “Better ISIS!”

The spectrum of possibilities is wide: the mockery targets both fascist urgencies and the odd dreams of a fully Africanized country, with a 100 percent black national football team, and even David... with a large appendage. The crude cliché, to annoy both right and left. There's nothing realistic, but hyperbole responds to hyperbole. The condemnation is aimed at both. But will both sides understand?

In the end, a pietistic or blindly partisan reading does not emerge. It's partisan only because it speaks to a public opinion now radically aligned, divided in two. But here we are not talking about migrants from the usual salon, Checco moves among them and it becomes impossible to continue labeling them with a collective name. The sense of discussing pro and con is also lost, because each of them is an individual, ready even to betray their travel companions.

You laugh less this time, but unfortunately, this does not elevate the quality of the rare laughs. You laugh almost always at the usual antics of Zalone, which are just fine, but you can notice a bit of the cold fusion between Checco's more rowdy spirit and Virzì's finer irony. You jump a little, but the viewing flows smoothly, partly due to slightly less rudimentary grammar.

It will divide, because a film that aspires to certain numbers surely encounters a slice of reluctant Italians, and certain politicians (from both sides) have already appeared on social media. It doesn't matter if in the film everyone is mocked, even the celebrity-journalists who do egocentric reportages among migrants, or the cheap politicians (not so much those against, but especially those pro-immigration). It's a razzberry at all the hypocrisies that fill Italy and the newspapers, but I believe it will be perceived only as sympathetic towards migrants.

And probably that's fine with Zalone, these are collateral damages anticipated, as long as people go to see it. I don't think he really cares much about expressing his opinion on the issue, in fact, I don't think he even has a relevant opinion. He is like millions of talkative Italians. Here, in fact, the punctiform practice of the generalized slap proceeds, without much more to add.

No great messages remain, there are no particular readings. It's the prank of a comedian who can afford anything and in this case, fully exploits the absurd rancor that runs through Italy. And the record earnings of the first day emphatically prove him right. Then it may decrease if word spreads that it's a pro-migrant film. But in the meantime...