I watched The Traitor (2019) and wanted to know more about the extremely violent mafia of 1980's Italy. That movie was about the mafia boss Tommaso Buscetta and was a ton of fun even though the story structure was a mess. It was big budget, with quality actors, and most importantly by far: in Italian. It was also about the Maxi trial where Buscetta was the extremely controversial witness vs. The mafia. Something that was unheard of from a mafia member. But as Riina took control of the mafia he started killing family members and killed Buscetta's family members too even those outside the mafia. The trial put hundreds of mafia members in prison and was the beginning of the end for Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia. It was set in a period where Riina killed hundreds of people to gain full power. Judges and prosecutors were killed left and right in Palermo. It was the most dangerous job in Italy basically and even most civilians seemed too scared to speak up. Even if you had 5 bodyguards the mafia would shoot you down or blow you up. Hell, even if you were in another country they'd do the same. The mafia was always extremely powerful and owned many judges and mayors. But at this point in time they got violent too and finally Italy paid in blood for letting them freely trade heroin to all the world.
The movie tells the story from Giovanni Falcone's point of view. And I must say it's a way more boring point of view. Falcone was basically a nerd prosecutor, a hero for sure unlike the murderer Buscetta, but he did boring work. It's not impossible to present boring work as interesting. The Social Network did it for example by focusing on the social aspects. But this movie is lazily put together. We just get the basics. If he married a year we get a marriage scene. If someone died we get a funeral scene. If he first met someone that year we get a meeting scene. One after another with no great excitement. It's just the real story presented in a shallow way. We are not diving deep into papers, trails, bank accounts, mafia clans. I really wanted the movie to just dare to be about paperwork for 10 minutes. Just Falcone tracking down some drug money one paper after another. But we get zero of that unfortunately. Largely it focuses on his marriage. There are even some overly long scenes where he debates the dangers with his wife. It's soap opera. They were both murdered years later.
When Buscetta was brought to Italy to stand trial he asked for Falcone. They had very long interviews that amounted to a whole structure of the mafia and all the crimes they did. It was 500 pages of evidence. Before that time the mafia even said they didn't exist. An invention. With such evidence we finally understood how the mafia worked and who did what. And we finally all agreed they existed in real life. The movie up to that point feels like it's going somewhere. Buscetta asks for Falcone. The interview starts and then... not much. They again do a bit of shallow exposition and we move on to his marriage and boring marriage conflicts about the danger of his job. We never return to Buscetta. The movie really should have been about the interviews alone. Just that and nothing else. The marriage stuff is boring.
Storywise I did notice quite a few differences from the newer movie, The Traitor (2019). Buscetta takes his poison pill on the plane not on his way to the plane in Brazil. Then a prisoner staples his mouth shut instead of sewing it shut. A lot of such smaller events that are just presented in a way different way. But the story overall is true in both movies. I didn't notice any great bias in either movie as I don't really know the full story.
The main issue besides the weak story is the low budget, low quality lighting, and very unacceptable acting. The low budget means that all scenes are just boring scenes filmed in simple locations. Back then with non-digital cameras you couldn't do much post editing or film a lot. All these scenes use very cheap lighting lamps making it all look like very fake soap opera. Did they hire some cheap Italian crew? It looks awful. You can of course do more with cheap digital cameras today, but all those streets look modern now so the CGI will just take up the extra cost.
The acting was ghastly. They use fake Italian accents. Like, it's not enough to mention Palermo every 10 minutes? All actors put on a fake Super Mario accent and not a single actors is pulling it off. It sounds like theater actors trying to act for the first time. They should have spoken proper English and the movie would have been way better. Only one who was acceptable was Paolo Borsellino. The actor who played him also looks just like him. They gave Chazz Palminteri a cheap fake mustache and thought he looked like Falcone, he doesn't. F. Murray Abraham also looks nothing like Tommaso Buscetta. But largely it's a shame they all are phoning it in. Their fake accents are like nails on a chalkboard. And I know they are good actors outside of this type of movie No fake accents again! Ever! It makes all actors way worse and sounds awful.
The movie is barely acceptable and only for people who really want to see Falcone's point of view. It's an interesting real mafia story. Besides this it's not a fun movie and it looks ugly.
The movie tells the story from Giovanni Falcone's point of view. And I must say it's a way more boring point of view. Falcone was basically a nerd prosecutor, a hero for sure unlike the murderer Buscetta, but he did boring work. It's not impossible to present boring work as interesting. The Social Network did it for example by focusing on the social aspects. But this movie is lazily put together. We just get the basics. If he married a year we get a marriage scene. If someone died we get a funeral scene. If he first met someone that year we get a meeting scene. One after another with no great excitement. It's just the real story presented in a shallow way. We are not diving deep into papers, trails, bank accounts, mafia clans. I really wanted the movie to just dare to be about paperwork for 10 minutes. Just Falcone tracking down some drug money one paper after another. But we get zero of that unfortunately. Largely it focuses on his marriage. There are even some overly long scenes where he debates the dangers with his wife. It's soap opera. They were both murdered years later.
When Buscetta was brought to Italy to stand trial he asked for Falcone. They had very long interviews that amounted to a whole structure of the mafia and all the crimes they did. It was 500 pages of evidence. Before that time the mafia even said they didn't exist. An invention. With such evidence we finally understood how the mafia worked and who did what. And we finally all agreed they existed in real life. The movie up to that point feels like it's going somewhere. Buscetta asks for Falcone. The interview starts and then... not much. They again do a bit of shallow exposition and we move on to his marriage and boring marriage conflicts about the danger of his job. We never return to Buscetta. The movie really should have been about the interviews alone. Just that and nothing else. The marriage stuff is boring.
Storywise I did notice quite a few differences from the newer movie, The Traitor (2019). Buscetta takes his poison pill on the plane not on his way to the plane in Brazil. Then a prisoner staples his mouth shut instead of sewing it shut. A lot of such smaller events that are just presented in a way different way. But the story overall is true in both movies. I didn't notice any great bias in either movie as I don't really know the full story.
The main issue besides the weak story is the low budget, low quality lighting, and very unacceptable acting. The low budget means that all scenes are just boring scenes filmed in simple locations. Back then with non-digital cameras you couldn't do much post editing or film a lot. All these scenes use very cheap lighting lamps making it all look like very fake soap opera. Did they hire some cheap Italian crew? It looks awful. You can of course do more with cheap digital cameras today, but all those streets look modern now so the CGI will just take up the extra cost.
The acting was ghastly. They use fake Italian accents. Like, it's not enough to mention Palermo every 10 minutes? All actors put on a fake Super Mario accent and not a single actors is pulling it off. It sounds like theater actors trying to act for the first time. They should have spoken proper English and the movie would have been way better. Only one who was acceptable was Paolo Borsellino. The actor who played him also looks just like him. They gave Chazz Palminteri a cheap fake mustache and thought he looked like Falcone, he doesn't. F. Murray Abraham also looks nothing like Tommaso Buscetta. But largely it's a shame they all are phoning it in. Their fake accents are like nails on a chalkboard. And I know they are good actors outside of this type of movie No fake accents again! Ever! It makes all actors way worse and sounds awful.
The movie is barely acceptable and only for people who really want to see Falcone's point of view. It's an interesting real mafia story. Besides this it's not a fun movie and it looks ugly.