Francesco Munzi’s hard-hitting drama presents a chilling portrait of underworld life in rural southern Italy.
Based on real events and adapted from Gioacchino Criaco’s fictional account of them in his novel 'Black Souls', Munzi’s film details how violence begets violence in Calabria. The Carbone family is dominated by three brothers. Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) are engaged in the family business of trafficking narcotics, while Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) remains in his Mediterranean ancestral town of Africo, high in the Aspromonte mountains, herding goats. His 20-year old son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo) has little respect for his father’s way of life, instead idolising his mobster uncles. When he shoots up a bar owned by a rival family that have a longstanding blood feud with the Carbones, Leo’s reckless actions bring all three brothers together for a bloody showdown.
★★★★ "Gripping Italian crime drama" - Jonathan Romney, The Guardian
★★★★ "Shockingly effective" - Tom Huddleston, Time Out
★★★★ "Zings with realism" - Robbie Collin, The Telegraph
15
109 minutes
2015
Thriller, European, Drama
Italy
Italian
English
Vertigo Releasing