It's basically a faithful retelling of the mafia story and how largely one traitor put them all behind bars. Hundreds of people. At the very start Tommaso Buscetta moves to Brazil with a fake passport as he wanted to get away from the new extremely profitable but dangerous heroin trade. Compared to real life the actor looks considerably younger and more normal. The real life Tommaso Buscetta had some face lifts that made him very weird while this guy just looks normal. In Brazil he finds out that 2 of his sons were killed by the mafia in Italy. Many of his family members were killed too. It's actually hard to understand what happened. He just gets a call from someone who is crying. We later see that it's likely his wife. But where was he? How does he know his sons died? He still wants to hide away as he likes women and his calm family life. But the Brazilian police storm his house. They beat him up in prison and later dangle his daughter or new wife out of a helicopter as he looks on. I don't know if that helicopter stuff is realistic in any way, but the rest seems true to real life somewhat. Just very hard to understand.
Buscetta takes some poison on the way to Italy, but doesn't die. When in Italy we see him sitting across Giovanni Falcone who is prosecuting the mafia. He seemingly is working with the government somehow. But we only hear very few things from him so it's not quite clear what is going on. There are also too many dream scenes and flashbacks everywhere. It's hard to understand the point. I kinda needed to get the history and the characters, but often the movie instead shows us random scenes. Especially animals in zoo cages. All the time various animals are cut into a scene. All to illustrate how the mafia is going to prison, but not needed whatsoever. Instead they should have had a narrator or shown scenes where someone tells something about the event to another person.
We see a ton of mafia bosses just sit around or go to court. They sit in small prison cells in court and shout. The judge tries to listen to Buscetta, but he's constantly interrupted by the defense lawyers shouting or the inmates shouting. The movie never lets anyone have time to explain much of anything. And we just jump from scene to scene. It seems like most scenes are small stories someone once wrote about or told the cops. So it's not one single story. They don't try to tell a coherent story with a protagonist or make it clear who is who or who wants what. It's just a bunch of real life events one after another. We never quite understand what is going on. Yet I was glued to the screen. I wanted to know what happened. I knew it was all real life and that by itself made it interesting. Unfortunately Buscetta is not that interesting and we never quite understand what he wants or why. We don't understand what he did for the mafia, why he wanted to become a traitor, or what he told the cops. Later we see how he finds out that one of his best friends from childhood killed his sons. Just like Buscetta said at the start, but he shouldn't have had that info there. There are a ton of flashback scenes, but this was one that really tied it all together. You could understand the motivation and emotions behind it all. The movie lucks into fair enough storytelling by just throwing everything at the screen and hoping the audience will somehow understand the wider picture. We never fully do, but I just liked how we follow real life events. Nice to see the Italian courts and to learn about hundreds of murders and how the mafia ruled Italy. This is pretty extreme. They just kill hundreds of people while hiding INSIDE Italy. Imagine that happening in England or USA today? You can't. You know the guy who does it. Know how he looks like. Even know what area he lives in. But he kills hundreds of innocent people and even Falcone and other prosecutors. Just protected by Sicilians.
It's maybe not an ideally told story. But the sets look real and the acting is good. You are never quite bored which is already special for a movie. But I'm sure there are better docs and movies about this story. Something that actually tells the story.
Buscetta takes some poison on the way to Italy, but doesn't die. When in Italy we see him sitting across Giovanni Falcone who is prosecuting the mafia. He seemingly is working with the government somehow. But we only hear very few things from him so it's not quite clear what is going on. There are also too many dream scenes and flashbacks everywhere. It's hard to understand the point. I kinda needed to get the history and the characters, but often the movie instead shows us random scenes. Especially animals in zoo cages. All the time various animals are cut into a scene. All to illustrate how the mafia is going to prison, but not needed whatsoever. Instead they should have had a narrator or shown scenes where someone tells something about the event to another person.
We see a ton of mafia bosses just sit around or go to court. They sit in small prison cells in court and shout. The judge tries to listen to Buscetta, but he's constantly interrupted by the defense lawyers shouting or the inmates shouting. The movie never lets anyone have time to explain much of anything. And we just jump from scene to scene. It seems like most scenes are small stories someone once wrote about or told the cops. So it's not one single story. They don't try to tell a coherent story with a protagonist or make it clear who is who or who wants what. It's just a bunch of real life events one after another. We never quite understand what is going on. Yet I was glued to the screen. I wanted to know what happened. I knew it was all real life and that by itself made it interesting. Unfortunately Buscetta is not that interesting and we never quite understand what he wants or why. We don't understand what he did for the mafia, why he wanted to become a traitor, or what he told the cops. Later we see how he finds out that one of his best friends from childhood killed his sons. Just like Buscetta said at the start, but he shouldn't have had that info there. There are a ton of flashback scenes, but this was one that really tied it all together. You could understand the motivation and emotions behind it all. The movie lucks into fair enough storytelling by just throwing everything at the screen and hoping the audience will somehow understand the wider picture. We never fully do, but I just liked how we follow real life events. Nice to see the Italian courts and to learn about hundreds of murders and how the mafia ruled Italy. This is pretty extreme. They just kill hundreds of people while hiding INSIDE Italy. Imagine that happening in England or USA today? You can't. You know the guy who does it. Know how he looks like. Even know what area he lives in. But he kills hundreds of innocent people and even Falcone and other prosecutors. Just protected by Sicilians.
It's maybe not an ideally told story. But the sets look real and the acting is good. You are never quite bored which is already special for a movie. But I'm sure there are better docs and movies about this story. Something that actually tells the story.