Di Leo weaves an impeccable story of anti-heroes, kairos and kronos, in which the perfect time of revenge succumbs to the inexorable time of destiny: from the formidable initial sequence of the delivery, complete with the murder of three couriers, it is clear that the die is cast for everyone under that urban dome, dirty, realistic and violent, full of worlds in perpetual and fatal collision.
A dark and foggy Milan, where the city of luxury, villas and ultra-modern offices belongs to the new criminality of the American, while in the belly of the slums survives the old godfather of Piazza, Don Vincenzo. “Now no one comes to see me anymore, but once, when I gave the orders …”: blind, finished, to take care of him is only another of his thugs, Chino voice of the chorus in the tragedy.
“The American? I know he’s an ugly beast. Influential friends at the top and unscrupulous people at the bottom: never mess with him. Besides, he’s a clean guy; he’s never been inside. Do you know what that means? That he has handled with commissioners, finance and even magistrates: they are twenty years that he is the master. I’m not afraid of them, but I don’t want to get involved because it wouldn’t be regular.”
Two different and irreconcilable methods and mentalities: if Chino tells Ugo to ask him “always what you want, but don’t ask me to break the rules,” for the American, one must do to others “what they would like to do to you, but do it first!” Both damned, the old mafia will eventually kill the new one (“They call it mafia, but today they are gangs fighting and competing with each other. The real mafia no longer exists”), but at the highest possible price.
Di Leo denounces a corrupt system where cause and effect are confused, professional integrity is paid for, punishment is conceived as revenge (“Now they have even started to challenge the prison: they want healthy, spacious places”) and the claim of fundamental freedoms and the most basic social justice is passed off as subversion and class hatred (“Mercuri, one is born criminal! (…) But maybe you have it in for the rich?”).
Source
Genre: thriller – crime
Cast
Gastone Moschin: Ugo Piazza
Barbara Bouchet: Nelly Bordon
Mario Adorf: Rocco Musco
Frank Wolff: commissioner
Luigi Pistilli: Deputy Commissioner Mercuri
Ivo Garrani: Don Vincenzo
Philippe Leroy: Chino
Lionel Stander: American
Preludio