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Rating: An incredible physical resemblance between two people who are fundamentally and totally different: Dante, a school bus driver for the disabled, and Johnny Stecchino, a repentant and ex-mafioso.
A highly enjoyable story of endless misunderstandings and confusions that intersect and unfold in hilarious scenes performed by a stunning and "split" Roberto Benigni.
Dante (Benigni) lives his modest life in an overly tranquil town, and the only crime he's ever committed is a bizarre fraud against his insurer, a certain Dr. Randazzo (Ivano Marescotti), and the theft of a few bananas from the greengrocer using a very particular method; Johnny (Benigni), a Sicilian, a criminal forced into hiding by his Repentance, concealed in his villa to keep himself intact from those in Palermo who hunt him, especially Boss Cozzamara.
The lives of these two opposites cross paths when Maria (Nicoletta Braschi), Johnny's wife, notices the sensational resemblance between Dante and her husband. With the help of her Uncle (actually the family lawyer played by Paolo Bonacelli) and a dose of female cunning, she convinces the simpleton Dante to follow her to Palermo, to be called by a name that is not his, to always have a toothpick in his mouth, to have a mole drawn on his face, and essentially, therefore, to assume another identity without understanding the real reason or that one even exists.
The plan devised and orchestrated by the woman aims at nothing other than deceiving the numerous enemies of the reformed mobster and consequently sacrificing the gullible Dante, whose sacrifice would release the Repentant from forced confinement.
Throughout the story, with absolutely hilarious developments, our naive protagonist doesn't notice any oddities and innocently goes along with Maria's and the Uncle's schemes, calmly strolling with her through the city streets and ending up involved in a series of funny situations, which are a crescendo of laughs and irony.
The double meaning that each circumstance presents to the omniscient viewer's eyes makes the genuine honesty and absence of vulgarity its strong point, and the ambivalence on which the entire film is centered is never trivial or predictable.
A film that perfectly succeeds in its intent, proposing itself as comedic and indeed being so, thanks especially to the vibrant and multiple interpretation by Roberto Benigni, ready to invent a burlesque side where normally only seriousness would be found, addressing and touching on hot topics such as drugs and mafia with infinite lightness without ever crossing into bad taste.
Year 1991
Duration 115 min
Director Roberto Benigni
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