I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival. It's producer Sandro Silvestri was on hand for an audience Q&A following the screening. This is a good action/drama/comedy from Italy. It's fast paced espionage-chase story and simple straight forward story line is almost like an American movie or television movie and one could easily see being remade as an English language film. A Polish billionaire needs a microchip with some important information on it and is willing to pay $4 million Eros to get it. Matera (Ennio Fantastichini), Andrea (Ivan Franek) and Garofano (Francesco Pannofino) and Diolaiti (Roberto Citran) are prepared to battle a violent war against each other to get their hands on the microchip. The microchip ends up in the possession of Leila (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) who enlists the help of Franz (Valerio Mastandrea), a down on his luck bus driver to help her out. This is a strong debut film from director Davide Marengo based on a story by Giampiero Rigosi and adapted for the screen by Fabio Bonifacci. It's nicely photographed by veteran cinematographer Arnaldo Catinari with naturally almost all the scenes shot at night. Some interesting support characters, most memorably Mario Rivera as Titti. This would be pretty appealing to a general audience but it does have some scenes of violence and is by no means an art film. I would give this a 7.5 out of 10 and recommend it.
Review of Notturno bus
