Forget all the movie you have seen since now about mafia. Forget good people to one side and bad people to the other, forget blood and gunshots. This is the real story of a boy from Sicily who's family is actually very well connected with Mafia, so to fight Mafia he has to fight against people he loves, and make them take the same risks he takes in this fight. It is also a good portrait about Sicily's way of life and youth rebellion of seventies. I'm sorry for those have to see it in a different language from italian (I should say sicilian) because original dialogs worth it. A word about scriptwriters, Monica Zapelli and Claudio Fava. Their good job comes from their knowledge about Mafia, and their courage actually fighting it.
15 Reviews
Nice italian movie
dadie28 December 2000
Somebody say that it is a classical italian movie about Mafia, but I'm sure that `I cento passi'is something more. It talks about the real story of Peppino Impastato. Peppinpo was a boy who lived in a small village in Sicily in the 70's. After his grandfather's murder he knew a printer who was communist and becoming communist and through he tried to fight the Mafia and the boss in particular, because he was the mandant of grandfather's murder. `I cento passi' means ` 100 steps' which was the distance between his home and the boss' house. He was killed by dynamite the same day of Moro's murder (a famous italian politician) but the police said that it was an accident. It is a real story and it make you thing how the pawer is dangerous but also how is important the bravery.
A good film blighted by bad subtitles
calorne2 March 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The acting and imagery are strong and striking bringing to life the story of a young man who protests against and speaks out against the Mafia. The beauty of the landscape and the faded charm of the town's architecture are contrasted with the brutality of organised crime and the way in which it can fracture families.
I watched this on Amazon Prime and the English subtitles were poor, often in broken and unnatural English and I am certain they did little justice to the original Italian which is a shame. Even names were translated incorrectly. At the end of the film the subtitles said that Gaetano Impastato was committed for trial when the Italian text above correctly stated it was Gaetano Badalamenti.
I lack the ability to learn Italian and so I hope to see the film again one day with a better translation.
I watched this on Amazon Prime and the English subtitles were poor, often in broken and unnatural English and I am certain they did little justice to the original Italian which is a shame. Even names were translated incorrectly. At the end of the film the subtitles said that Gaetano Impastato was committed for trial when the Italian text above correctly stated it was Gaetano Badalamenti.
I lack the ability to learn Italian and so I hope to see the film again one day with a better translation.
An outstanding movie with powerful performances
Lorem-Ipsum21 September 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Since my long-term girlfriend is from Cinisi (where the film is set) I regularly visit. I also learnt on my first trip out that she is actually a cousin of Giovanni Impastato. Thus I have an interest in the history and eat at the pizza restaurant each time I'm in the area.
Not knowing what to expect from this film, I was stunned at the powerful performances and overall impact of this moving drama.
Luigi Lo Cascio, baring the chiselled good looks of a young Tim Roth, delivers an outstanding performance far superior to anything any actor produces from Hollywood these days.
The locations are beautiful and it's easy to spot the Corso Umberto main street and other sites from Cinisi used in the film.
I Cento Passi is an outstanding movie, that presents an effective portrayal of the other side of living with the mafia, far, far away from the more accepted, almost romantic, wiseguy ideals seen in Goodfellas, The Godfather and the like.
SPOILER
I also found this after trawling the web for more info on the story
BBC, Saturday, 1 May, 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3675535.stm)
Gaetano Badalamenti, once known as the "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, has died at the age of 80 in the US where he was serving a prison sentence.
Badalamenti became notorious in the US for masterminding a crime ring that distributed heroin and cocaine through pizza parlours between 1975 and 1984. He was sentenced in 1987 to 47 years in federal prison.
Born in the village of Cinisi near Palermo in 1923, Gaetano Badalamenti became a key figure in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra in the 1970s.
Italy also convicted Badalamenti in absentia of the 1978 murder of a radio DJ who poked fun at the Mafia.
The remains of Giuseppe "Peppino" Impastato were found torn apart by a bomb on a Sicilian railway line. Badalamenti was finally convicted of the crime in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.
Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed prison official as saying he died of a heart attack at a US federal medical centre in Devens, Massachusetts, on Thursday evening.
Not knowing what to expect from this film, I was stunned at the powerful performances and overall impact of this moving drama.
Luigi Lo Cascio, baring the chiselled good looks of a young Tim Roth, delivers an outstanding performance far superior to anything any actor produces from Hollywood these days.
The locations are beautiful and it's easy to spot the Corso Umberto main street and other sites from Cinisi used in the film.
I Cento Passi is an outstanding movie, that presents an effective portrayal of the other side of living with the mafia, far, far away from the more accepted, almost romantic, wiseguy ideals seen in Goodfellas, The Godfather and the like.
SPOILER
I also found this after trawling the web for more info on the story
BBC, Saturday, 1 May, 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3675535.stm)
Gaetano Badalamenti, once known as the "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, has died at the age of 80 in the US where he was serving a prison sentence.
Badalamenti became notorious in the US for masterminding a crime ring that distributed heroin and cocaine through pizza parlours between 1975 and 1984. He was sentenced in 1987 to 47 years in federal prison.
Born in the village of Cinisi near Palermo in 1923, Gaetano Badalamenti became a key figure in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra in the 1970s.
Italy also convicted Badalamenti in absentia of the 1978 murder of a radio DJ who poked fun at the Mafia.
The remains of Giuseppe "Peppino" Impastato were found torn apart by a bomb on a Sicilian railway line. Badalamenti was finally convicted of the crime in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.
Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed prison official as saying he died of a heart attack at a US federal medical centre in Devens, Massachusetts, on Thursday evening.
Great movie, and it's no godfather, thankfully
PAolo-105 March 2001
The Hundred Steps is a GREAT movie, not to be missed by anybody who has grown up swallowing the godfather saccharine. Yes, the Sopranos might be entertaining, but this is real. It does not take more than an ounce of violence to create an incredible dramatic tension. The never changing Sicilian Landscape, the stone faced mafiosi and the fear that you breathe during all the movie make this much more than the unfortunate story of a one-man rebellion.
More than a mafia-film, an about mafia or anti-mafia film
Robertodelagriva14 January 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This film deserves many reflections (not all of them positive) about both its formal features and content. On the first category I can say, that this is a good film. On the second one I'll have to make a selection and invite you to watch the film and think about it. This film doesn't tell the true story of the facts which involved the true person Peppino Impastato. It isn't his biography. It's just the narration of his life, life understood as the net of relationships of a single person with his environment (territory, family, friends, politics, current contemporary ideas). So we don't watch a documentary film but a tale whose main character is Peppino Impastato, actually we see photos of the real Peppino only at the end oft the film. Nevertheless what Peppino makes through in the film is the representation of true facts. It's very difficult to tell a tale which bases on historical facts. Giordana has already attempted that in La meglio gioventù when he tried to show that history concerns the life of everybody creating an imaginary family, whose life builds the plot of the film, portrayed against the real background of Italian history. In I cento passi the task was more difficult because the narrated historical facts concerned the life of a real single person which were actually the plot of the film: obviously the director could not take many narrative liberties such as the romantic family saga plots in La meglio gioventù. So Giordana takes his liberties in trying to show the interior life of Peppino Impastato and his family. We receive a very impressive account of the possible thoughts and emotions of Peppino's father (sometimes a violent monster, sometimes a sad and lonely looser, conscious that the life of Peppino depends entirely on his own capacity to observe the mafia code, and, at least in this way, caring father) and a more sober representation of his mother and his brother (who are still alive). This tale of the relationships between the people who lived these true facts 30-40 years ago is in the end a reflection about the cruelty of the inhumane situation which everybody had to pull through when living in a mafia world: for example Peppino has to make radical and sad decisions and his father has to humiliate himself all his life long. That's why I say, that this is not a mafia film but a film about mafia or an anti-mafia film. Mafia doesn't mean the "Godfathers universe" (the mafia organization itself) but the systematical repression of liberty, which involves the progressive destruction of beauty (as Peppino says, sure not literally, in a very touching and peaceful scene of the film) and the following disorientation (not to say impossibility) of the self evolution. One of the first consequences of the contact with the mafia for the life of someone, in whatever form this may take place, is a lack of communication. So tries Peppino (who cannot speak with his father, as we see in their last very poor conversation) to reach so many people as possible with a broadcasting (Radio Aut), the cinema club or the itinerant theater. At a certain point in his fight he has to break with with Stefano Venuti, whose politics were too far from the people and with the superficial hippies, whose ideas were irrelevant for the territory. His efforts to liberate himself show the awareness of the impossibility of doing it in a merely private sphere which is separated from a meaning-full, beauty-full, humane environment. This, at least, makes his life (and we must thank Giordana for making a film about it) universally relevant.
A truly amazing and hidden gem
antondatree30 June 2002
I saw this movie just recently and loved it. I was sort of forced into watching it (I as trying to get my friend to bring out "Alien" instead, but that didn't work), and I found it an amazing experience. The performances are sizzling, especially from the title role of Peppino played by Luigi Lo Cascio. For a mafia film I found there to be an incredibly low amount of violence. If only it hadn't been forgotten, because it is a truly underrated gem. No Godfather, or even Pulp Fiction, but still a heart-warming and powerful film.
Unmissable.
7/10
Unmissable.
7/10
A politicized - psychoanalytic view of the Mafia.
Paolo R.29 September 2000
A very careful reconstruction of a real episode developing in Sicily from the '50s to the '70s. The film has the pace and the political idealism of "Z" by Costa Gavras. Americans might be interested to see the Mafia depicted in its Italian home-base, and relations between the (poorer, but more "original") Sicilian Mafiosi and their American counterparts / relations. This is a film on the protesting youth of the '70s, as well, with a lot of music like in the THE BIG CHILL. In Italy the film has been much discussed for its Mafia theme, but underneath there is a lot of family psychology.
An excellent non typical "mafia movie"
silviopellerani28 November 2001
I was well surprised to see how with intelligence a film with a plot which could be easily mixed up to the typical "mafia's films serie" has been excellently directed and extremely well acted.
Normally I do not make any type of comparison to the "golden years" (sixties-seventies) of the Italian cinema but for me is a must today to say that this film and the director: Giordana does not have anything to envy to Francesco Rosi and his films. The actor Luigi Lo Cascio is just excellent well deep involved in his character.
Do not miss the film it worths even in DVD or VHS.
Rating: 7/10
Normally I do not make any type of comparison to the "golden years" (sixties-seventies) of the Italian cinema but for me is a must today to say that this film and the director: Giordana does not have anything to envy to Francesco Rosi and his films. The actor Luigi Lo Cascio is just excellent well deep involved in his character.
Do not miss the film it worths even in DVD or VHS.
Rating: 7/10
Story of a man more than the mafia
villarusso24 January 2021
I stumbled across this movie tonight and am so glad I did. I had never heard of it, or of this story. Was refreshing to not see the glorified 'mafia' we see in films. Well cast and well written. And will always remember this film when I hear the song 'A whiter shade of pale'. A side note, I noticed during one scene they were watching a film and I had to pause. It was the film 'Hands over the city', which I had just watched the night before on the Criterion channel. In these times it was a well timed movie for me. Not many people are ready to stand up for their beliefs, and be the one who speaks up.
The hundred steps
jotix10028 June 2009
Warning: Spoilers
A Sicilian country wedding is the setting of story as it begins. Peppino Impastato, a young boy comes to the celebration with his parents and younger brother. At the banquet that follows one can see an assortment of characters that will be pivotal to the story later on. Being Sicily one can dismiss the idea that organized crime hoods are at the bridal table and somehow Peppino's own father knows much more than he owns up to, in this tale about the of an awakening. The viewer never suspects the change from the bucolic setting of the early scenes to the reality of how the mafia works in that part of Italy.
Something changes Peppino's perception of life when he goes to visit a local artist that has holds high communist ideals as a priority. Peppino fights with his father and abandons the family home. His life changes completely until he finds his own voice when he and his friends start a local radio in Cinisi, a small town in the island. Little prepares us for the way Peppino's voice will do to the mafia bigwigs that have a tight control on everything in Cinisi.
Marco Tullio Giordana, the director of "La meglio giuventu", his epic masterpiece about Italian life seen through different generations, conceived and co-wrote this film about a passionate youth that dedicates his life to fight the organized crime in his home town. Supposedly, it is based on a real person, but not being a hundred percent certain, we have to go on the assumption that it reflects what really happened in that small town years ago.
The only reason for watching this Italian film is Luigi Lo Cascio's take on Peppino. As he proved later with his participation in the director's next movie, this young actor shows he is one of the best of his generation and has a great future in the Italian cinema. Also in the cast, Luigi Maria Burruano, who makes a good job as Peppino's father.
Although the theme is about Peppino's turn into leftist politics in his own land, the film is enjoyable because it is never in one's face. Mr. Giordana makes the viewer get his own conclusion by stating the facts as he saw them.
Something changes Peppino's perception of life when he goes to visit a local artist that has holds high communist ideals as a priority. Peppino fights with his father and abandons the family home. His life changes completely until he finds his own voice when he and his friends start a local radio in Cinisi, a small town in the island. Little prepares us for the way Peppino's voice will do to the mafia bigwigs that have a tight control on everything in Cinisi.
Marco Tullio Giordana, the director of "La meglio giuventu", his epic masterpiece about Italian life seen through different generations, conceived and co-wrote this film about a passionate youth that dedicates his life to fight the organized crime in his home town. Supposedly, it is based on a real person, but not being a hundred percent certain, we have to go on the assumption that it reflects what really happened in that small town years ago.
The only reason for watching this Italian film is Luigi Lo Cascio's take on Peppino. As he proved later with his participation in the director's next movie, this young actor shows he is one of the best of his generation and has a great future in the Italian cinema. Also in the cast, Luigi Maria Burruano, who makes a good job as Peppino's father.
Although the theme is about Peppino's turn into leftist politics in his own land, the film is enjoyable because it is never in one's face. Mr. Giordana makes the viewer get his own conclusion by stating the facts as he saw them.
One of the few movies after which I cried
lucap-gentile8 April 2021
This movie is how mafia stories should be: real and not romanticized around the mafia concept.
The all story is accurately narrated thanks to the mother of Peppino Impastato.
Watching it will not only be entertainment, but the spectator will learn about real lives stories and discover how much disgusting mafia is.
The all story is accurately narrated thanks to the mother of Peppino Impastato.
Watching it will not only be entertainment, but the spectator will learn about real lives stories and discover how much disgusting mafia is.
A courageous Man who defied The Mafia
SGuiliano10649727 May 2020
I was so shocked to learn that when Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were assassinated in Sicily in Spring/Summer 1992, that the people of Sicilia were standing up and protested to the organized crime. Yes, I do remember. I read a Book called " The Excellent Cadavers" by Alexander Stille, when he talks about the bloody ordeal of Ani-mafia judges who were murdered by Toto Riina during the 70's and 80's.
This man Peppino Impastato took it upon himself and spoke out against this terrorist society in the 1970's. But in the end, with that task he was murdered.
This was a good film and I enjoyed as much. Great performances. I CENTO PASSI is a film that really hit me because of my appreciation of the culture and the language of the Island of Sicily. This is a film that captures a man who sacrificed his life for a just cause to a bunch of murderous cowards.
Rating: 7.6
Rating: 7.6
a bloody page of italians history
principato28 May 2001
"I cento passi" is a great novel (based on the real life of Giuseppe "Peppino" Impastato), it tells the story of a brave man who believed in honesty and was killed by mafia. What about today? Something has changed, something remains the same. With movie like "I cento passi" everyone now can think and understand more about those days.
Must see
antoniolovotrico12 April 2020
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