Michele Placido
Vallanzasca - Gli Angeli del Male

Vallanzasca - Angels of Evil

I will be honest, although I am used to my constant changes of assessment during the second viewing of a film, I never thought I would change my mind about this "Vallanzasca - Angels of Evil".

But let's go in order.

I saw the movie in question at the time when it was released in Italian cinemas: I entered the theater full of hopes for this noir that dealt with such a controversial character but with a story that well lends itself to the film genre in which it is inserted, and although Michele Placido as a director is not a top (indeed), with his previous "Romanzo Criminale" he managed to surprise me positively.

But whether it was due to the poor sound quality, which at times cut out leaving sentences incomplete, or the lights in the theater that inexplicably turned on compromising the viewing, or the fact that in these damn multiplexes there's always the annoying kid whispering with friends throughout the viewing, for whatever reason, but leaving the cinema I found myself at the end of the viewing with a blackened soul for having wasted 8 euros on a feature film that left me deeply unsatisfied.

Two years passed since that evening and a few weeks ago, while talking to a couple of friends over a beer, this film came up as a topic and unexpectedly they spoke about it in positive terms, describing a film that, although with some flaws, does its job in entertaining the viewer properly.

Needless to say, at that point curiosity had set in, so that very evening I borrowed the DVD from one of the friends and once home I put it in the player and for the millionth time in my life, I was forced to change my mind.

The story, broadly speaking, I think you all know more or less: it deals with the real-life actions (here also fictionalized) of the handsome Renato Vallanzasca, a Milanese bandit who rampaged with his gang in northern Italy during the '70s, committing various robberies, kidnappings, and murders. A character as ruthless as he was magnetic, endowed with a charm that in those years bestowed upon him a lot of notoriety which, like in a vicious circle, seemed to further fuel his megalomania.

Speaking of the strengths of Placido's film, besides the tight rhythm that doesn’t let go for either of the two hours, it is mandatory to mention the beautiful cinematography, glossy but effective, combined with a soundtrack that enhances several scenes (only Negramaro's ending feels a bit off), very good also the reconstruction of the era, from costumes to cars which, although I've read is not always faithful, still catapults the viewer into the imagery of those years. But the thing that absolutely must be celebrated when talking about this film is the splendid interpretation by Kim Rossi Stuart in the role of the leading bandit, a role that seems tailor-made for him, theatrical in his movements but convincing in the result thanks to which he reproduces the same brashness and the same charm that at the time the newspapers attributed to the real Vallanzasca.

On the downside, this overwhelming role brings with it the flaw of totally eclipsing the rest of the parts and not even a good performance by a Francesco Scianna as the boss Turatello or an unhinged Filippo Timi can take some space from the protagonist who, just like his egocentrism, ends up stealing the scene from the rest of the cast.

The film's flaws unfortunately don't end here, although the mediocre Placido in this case outdid himself directing, providing really convincing moments and shots, at its base we find an excessively didactic and fragmented screenplay, where potentially impactful moments like robberies and kidnappings are compressed into a few minutes, often with a sequence of images that only suggests the action. An additional consideration I feel to express is not having given a more in-depth view of Vallanzasca’s character psychology, a factor that would have helped to bind the whole story using the madness of its protagonist as the guiding thread, which instead emerges as fascinating but terribly empty. Similarly, Vallanzasca’s relationship with the press, which he used to satisfy his ego but from which he was simultaneously used as a character "to sell" to the public, in a game of condemnation and at the same time mythologizing that has brought his story to our days, could have been better exploited. In short, more could have been dared.

Having said that, as I largely anticipated, the film is enjoyable, deserving a nod for having attempted to break into the Italian commercial scene dominated by comedies and in this regard, I decide to give the film an extra point, for a matter of reviewer ethics, because we always complain about the current state of our cinema, then when some valid and even potentially marketable product passes by it is allowed to pass quietly without celebrating it as much as it deserves and if this Italian cinema struggles to recover, maybe it is also our fault that we do not manage to push it properly in what it manages, as in this case, to be popular but at the same time of quality.