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Rating: At the perfect crossroads between the classic, traditional comedy made in Italy, the raunchy style of the Vanzina brothers' cinepanettoni, and the concise brevity of sitcoms, I Soliti Idioti have quickly conquered the "non-musical" component of MTV, certainly not by offering a series of unspeakable masterpieces destined for the film library, but rather a charming alternative to the sad trends of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom. The recipe for such success is, as already highlighted, a mix of absurdity, gags, and above all, strategically repeated and reiterated verbal catchphrases in all possible flavors and contexts: this is how the various Dai, Cazzo!, Mamma Esco!, Diica? Un attimo e sono subito da lei!, Non-lo-so, Fabio, non-lo-so emerged, impactful phrases that could not fail to be recycled for a feature film that unites in a single script the (mis)adventures of such stereotypical "idiots".
I Soliti Idioti - The Movie is indeed an attempt to incorporate the most significant and irreverent protagonists into a unifying plot, a choice made by all the respected series that do not intend to close down. Although the short-to-film adaptation process is not always the best decision in terms of quality and quantity (just think of all those shoddy and bland sequels created just to continue a profitable television market niche), in the case of I Soliti Idioti, it curiously managed to guarantee the "purity" of the original series (with the related gags and jokes) and especially avoids almost 100% horrendous lapses in style, for example, the classic transition from crude humor to tear-jerking love story. The film being analyzed therefore represents a work that may seem (and probably is) a bowl of pure deficiency and varied vulgarity, but at least it diligently respects the "style" of the individual episodes.
The plot is based on the most appreciated sketch of the series, Father And Son, and introduces a Ruggero de Ceglie dealing with the wedding of his son Gianluca, an event to which the neighbors Gisella and Sebastiano (Diica?....), the Immoralists Maria Luce and Giampietro, as well as the eccentric homosexual couple Fabio-Fabio, are also invited. With a laughable excuse (contracting a deadly disease called Rantolite Seborroica), the rough Ruggero does not allow his son’s marriage to take place and takes him to Rome to win a bet with his friend Chicco (to get Gianluca to hook up with the attractive model from Smutandissimi). In this crazy journey, the famous father-son relationship, made up of insults, mockery, deceit, and various infractions, becomes the leitmotif of the film along with the jokes of the side characters, primarily the "unlucky" metalhead Sebastiano who encounters the deceiving employee Gisella in the most unimaginable situations (tollbooth, roadside assistance…), always ending up defeated and the stormy relationship between the two gay lovers, here on the brink of separation (and Fabio's suicide with hysterical pregnancy).
Absurd, irreverent, grotesque, trash to the nth degree, yet funny, charming, and pleasant: the film of I Soliti Idioti is the perfect culmination of the philosophy posed by the eponymous sitcom, dedicated to "dystopically" ridiculing a society full of stereotypes, archetypes, clichés, beliefs, and collective fantasies, a thick layer of conventions and dogmas to dispel and nullify by exacerbating their essence and structure aggressively and hyper-uranianly. Despite the film partially losing the power and "momentary" coherence of the individual mini-episodes, it still manages to maintain the humorous charge of the same and especially makes fans of the various Diica?... and Dai, Cazzo!, catchphrases become an involuntary significant part of our jargon and that are unlikely to vanish from our informal conversations. Also because, after all, in our "intimacy", we are all small "soliti idioti" in the most embarrassing and compromising situations.
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