Review of Il Divo (2008) by Matthew O — 10 Jul 2012

LI Divo is a biopic of such, of corrupt Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, which leads to a trail tying Andreotti to murders and involvement with the Italian Mafia amongst others.

For a film carrying so much material and weight there are surprisly not that many memorable set piece scenes, the introductions to the various characters as they arrive in various cars and captions is well done, and an opening stand off with a cat between Andreotti and a white cat in a large hall, is great and sets a tone for the rest of the film. The tone is somewhat comical in places, with the use of bizarre musical pieces for assassinations for example, this gives the film and interesting edge.

There are a number of solid performances but it is safe to say that Toni Servillo steels the show. The actor gives a stone faced perfect performance as Giulio Andreotti, a performance that seems, to be part cartoonist part bizarre, but at it core very impressive.

There is no doubting the originality and power of this film, but something left me cold with its closing, this could be down to the lack of knowledge of Italian politics and not enough knowledge of Giulio Andreotti.