Italian films have always been the ebst of the best concerning the Sicilian Mafia, or even any Mafia in Italy; Camorra, Ndrangheta.... It brings something authentic, accurate, even more efficient and riveting than any US action flicks. Francesco Rosi, Damiano Damiani and Pasquale Squieteri were the masters on those topics. This one is one of the best examples of what I say. It s a fiction, but facts. It is not an action crime film, such as those Italian film industry made during the late sixties and especially the seventies: the famous poliziottescos, all violent, brutal, misogynist at the most, nothing to do with the films made by Damiani, Squieteri or Rosi. In those Poliziottescos, you have gunfights, car chases, tortures scenes galore till you get fed up. I prefer the Damiani style, more minimalist but true, showing informers, details on corruption, embezzlements, swindles. Acting absolutely flawless. Once more in his career Lee J Cobb, after ON THE WATER FRONT and PARTY GIRL, plays a mob boss.
Review of Mafia
