Gomorra

Une petite œuvre authentiquement glaçante et documentaire de courageux créateurs. Le froid intentionnel du film et la distanciation des personnages sont en adéquation avec la convivialité du monde dans lequel il se déroule. Ce n'est pas son handicap. Le temps d'exécution inutilement prolongé est le seul problème. En sélectionnant seulement l'essentiel et en le raccourcissant à 100 minutes, cela aurait pu être excellent ! (08/03/2009)

Boring? Maybe for lovers of mafia fairy tales. If you like the raw and unadorned style and you are interested in modern Godfathers, then you can hope for a similar emotional impact to that which Gomorrah had on me. I'm not going full out only because the film is really too long and Garrone (no matter how great of a job he did!) just can’t keep up. In my opinion, Gomorrah is one of the most impressive films in recent months. But I highly recommend that you at least read about what you are going to see. There were quite a few stray souls who came to see the next The Departed in the movie theatre. (13/03/2009)

It doesn't make sense to view Gomorrah as an entertaining genre film about the Italian organized crime environment; in fact, it deliberately resigns from that notion and is more of a fictionalized documentary that analyzes the structure, manifestations, and impacts of mafia activities. Extortion, drug trafficking, smuggling, slave labor, manipulation of government contracts, or trade in toxic waste – the film shows it all firsthand and offers a perfect disillusionment about the mafia as some organization with charismatic personalities and a functioning code of honor. These are rather creatures that have emerged from the lowest social strata and have remained mentally at that level as well. The film doesn't have a cohesive plot; it's more of a series of images and stories about how organized crime replaces state structures and controls people's lives. As I mentioned, it doesn't make sense to expect entertainment like in The Godfather from it, but rather a raw look inside. By the way, the investigative journalist who wrote the book of the same name and moved incognito among this assembly in southern Italy is in a worse situation than Salman Rushdie was when the fatwa was declared against him. Overall impression: 90%. (25/03/2011)

This is a different movie than "The Godfather". It's not about how cool it is to be a gangster, how good it looks, and how epic it can be. This is a movie about how disgusting it is, how bloody it is, and how it can affect everyone, for different reasons. Well, actually, I'm glad I don't have to live in Italy. A well-made different perspective on the mafia. (11/04/2016)