Frank Cappello
Un Uomo Qualunque

I feel a strange tingling, I have nervous tics, my head is spinning... so sorry but... before the review, I need to make an introduction... 

Try to look around when you go to work, when you go shopping, when you're in line at the Italian post office (especially the latter!), look carefully around...   people are going crazy! They can't take it anymore! Suppress, suppress, suppress, and in the end, they explode! Not everyone is ready to live a Fantozzi-like life! "Wake up and coffee, shave and bidet, hurry before I miss the tram, if I don't punch in..."  the daily grind of modern man has become an explosive device, a time bomb that's been ticking for years and ready to explode, except each of us has a different timer! The little crying child or the colleague who exploits you will be stabbed to death "sooner" or "later"... Depending on your level of accumulation, it's just a matter of time! It's a matter of timing! (as our protagonist actor says in the film).

We fear Afghan terrorists, but WE ARE THE TERRORISTS! We are the ones who will walk into a supermarket at any moment, armed to the teeth, and massacre women and children! We are the ones with a strange ticking in our jacket while standing in line at the post office...   and "BOOOOOM" Italian post office blown up (a very, very likely attack from me! Did you hear that, police?), we are the ones throwing our 2-year-old into the trash bin because they cried too much! How the hell can you not go crazy these days!!! How do you do it??? Tell me how I can resist the homicidal impulse in front of a conductor who tells me: "I have to fine you anyway even if all the Trenitalia ticket offices aren't working! I can't sell you the ticket on board!" how can you not smash his head against the train window! We're all crazy! I've come out in the open! But you are too! You "normal" ones are crazy too! You calm ones are crazy too, you average men are crazy too! Especially you! The average man is the one who goes crazy! It's not the demon-possessed rock star! Marilyn Manson will never do such a thing, last Sunday he was seen at mass with his mother taking communion! It's the employee who goes crazy, the postman, the bricklayer, the lawyer! The average man is the most dangerous!

This social drama is perfectly depicted in the film "Un Uomo Qualunque" by Frank Cappello. It tells the story of the employee Bob Maconel who, in addition to being an employee, has another role in his life, TO SUFFER!! Suffer from everyone, from his colleagues, from superiors, from girls, just like a new American Fantozzi, his not being listened to will obviously lead him to nurture the seed of madness! He starts talking to his goldfish, suffers from terrorist hallucinations, trembles, sweats, and stutters, the classic behaviors of someone about to make headlines worldwide for yet another massacre! A situation that leaves one quite perplexed given that it seems like witnessing pure reality! Nothing is exaggeratedly told... even I find myself talking to my teddy bear! And he answers me! Gives me advice and loves me dearly!!!!!! No surprises there!

And so, every blessed morning, our Bob, without being seen by his colleagues, takes a gun out of his desk drawer and starts loading the bullets, each dedicated to a colleague, but at the last bullet, Bob stops... it's not the right moment! To get back at your exploiters and to teach a lesson to this society's frenzy... you have to wait for the right moment... it's a matter of timing! Holy words BOB!!! And here the audience divides, viewers make their choice, on one side those who throughout the film hope that Bob recovers or finds a love to put him back on track, on the other side those like me who throughout the film... are waiting for the right moment with him!  But then comes the NON plot twist! Bob, of course, isn't the only employee about to explode! Millions of workers today live in his situation! Millions! Millions of people ready to pull the trigger! And indeed, it will be a colleague of his to carry out the massacre in his place... but Bob manages to stop him before he kills the woman Bob loves for good! Bob becomes a hero, and just like Fantozzi, starts to climb temporarily the path to success, mahogany desk, galactic vice director, prostitutes, and a human leather chair! But then... like Villaggio's character, it turns out that all these things disappear and it was just an illusion... another way to humiliate him once again! Plus, there's also an impossible love with the almost victim of the incident, now paralyzed and in a wheelchair! Bob, seemingly out of his coma (stops talking to fish, regains character, sings and dances) will receive another psychological blow that will make him crazier than before!!!! Try to imagine the ending!

I won't reveal it to you! Because it's predictable! It's the same ending that concludes every day in thousands of homes in Italy and around the world! It's a tragic ending that you, reader of this blog, can enact after reading this article. People are going crazy!

Returning to the film,  it's a kind of "Falling Down" much more in-depth! Here, it's not about one day, it's about 365 days a year!  The film, with a reduced production cost, is shot more than decently, the special effects of the hallucinations aren't very convincing but the main idea and the progression of the film are excellent! Christian Slater is wonderfully good in the part of Bob, with his nervous tics, his depressed look in the throes of madness, his performance best portrays the image of a real employee pushed to the limit of human endurance!

I would say "Un Uomo Qualunque" is an excellent film that borders on documentary for its shocking realism. Recommended for those about to go crazy and want to empathize with a colleague.  Obviously, I don't advise anyone to shoot their neighbor! unless they're like mine! Then fire at will!  Tatatatatatatatatatatatata