Movie Review: UNDERWORLD (A TOR BELLA MONACA NON PIOVE MAI)

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: July 7th, 2023 / 12:47 AM

UNDERWORLD movie poster | ©2023 The Global Asylum

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Libero De Rienzo, Andrea Sartoretti, Antonia Liskova, Giorgio Colangeli, Lorenza Guerreri, Fulvia Lorenzetti, Massimiliano Rossi, Lorenzo Lazzarini, Gabriel Montesi
Writer: Marco Bocci, based on his novel
Director: Marco Bocci
Distributor: The Global Asylum

Italian cinema has a rich tradition of crime stories, ranging from the epic to the kitchen sink. UNDERWORLD (A TOR BELLA MONACA NON PIOVE MAI) is among the latter, depicting how a middle-class family is driven to illegal activities.

UNDERWORLD begins with the start of a heist. Our money is on the intended victims, not because they’re especially formidable, but because the would-be robbers don’t seem to be up to their chosen task. One tries to chase a car on foot and has his gun fall out of his pocket. Another gang member won’t pick up his phone. And then …

… We cut to a week earlier. People the world over will be able to relate to the straits of the Morri family. Thirty-five-year-old Mauro (Libero De Rienzo) still lives with his parents, papa Gugliermo (Giorgio Colangeli) and mama Maria (Lorenza Guerreri), in their apartment in the working-class Rome neighborhood of Tor Bella Monaca. Also living in the apartment are Mauro’s older brother Romolo (Andrea Sartoretti), Romolo’s wife Lucia (Fulvia Lorenzetti), and their little daughter. It’s crowded.

Grandma, who also lived here until now, has suddenly died. This throws everything into turmoil, as her pension was keeping the family afloat.

Maria needs an operation, but the insurance won’t pay for it. Gugliermo has leased a shop to a shifty tenant (Massimiliano Rossi), who refuses to either hand over the rent or leave. The neighbors play music too loud. Lucia is angry at Romolo for not getting them a place of their own.

Romolo works at a machine shop, where his anti-immigrant boss says they can probably hire Mauro – if Romolo will file a false negative report against the lone Chinese employee.

Romolo refuses. He has spent four years in prison. Now he is attempting to stay straight and keep a clean conscience.

Mauro’s main preoccupation is pining after his ex-girlfriend Samantha (Antonia Liskova), who left him for an older and wealthier man. Samantha gives Mauro just enough hope to drive him crazy. He takes part-time odd jobs like putting up fliers for a gangster who’s also a politician.

Nobody takes Mauro seriously. Even his not-exactly-rocket-scientist pal Domenico (Lorenzo Lazzarini), whom we recognize from the opening, and Domenico’s friend Fabio (Gabriel Montesi) mainly want Mauro because of his connection to the more experienced, knowledgeable Romolo.

What perhaps even Mauro himself doesn’t realize – certainly no one else around him does – is that he has quite a temper.

Director/writer Marco Bocci, who adapted the screenplay from his own novel, segues easily from low-key comedy to sober drama. The tone of UNDERWORLD is very well-modulated, so that it all feels of a piece, from Gugliermo’s bluster to acts of extreme violence.

Bocci is visually artful as well, with shot combinations that have a departing character dissolve into geometric shapes before fading into the nighttime lights of the town.

Speaking of the town, UNDERWORLD is about the least glamorous view of Rome imaginable. The curves of streets and roads and walkway grids are distinctly European, but the environments are deliberately mundane. In many ways, UNDERWORLD could take place in any number of urban settings. There is nothing historical or architectural here to provide any comfort to the characters; we understand why everybody wants something better, something else.

Di Rienzo is wonderfully varied as the well-meaning Mauro, sensitive, yearning, ashamed, plaintive, and occasionally terrifying. Sartoretti is convincing as Romolo, a man who has been through a great deal and effortlessly commands the respect of those around him. Liskova gives Samantha a visible internal life, even as she embodies a type of idealized woman.

UNDERWORLD doesn’t take on the workings and structures of big gangs, but its portrait of a microcosm of society persuasively illustrates how ordinary people can get into extraordinary trouble.

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