Gomorrah (2009), A Crime Masterpiece...

[Ben]

Gomorrah (2009)

Have you seen this movie at Festivals etc?

Looking forward to it...

Organised crime -- gritty and VERY dark and extremely realistic...

Critics are saying that this is a crime
masterpiece.

http://www.gomorrahmovie.co.uk/
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[tha son]

Finished reading the book about a month ago. Downloaded the movie but didn't have the subtitles so I didn't get to check it out. Heard some pretty great stuff and the trailer looked awesome.

Good book though, I would say I got bored at parts but still was into it the whole way through...

[thewire]

I saw this back in December, I thought it was decent. I expected just a little more. Some of the acting was barely passable. Parts of the movie were pretty good, a few really crazy sequences! As in, holy sh*t moments.

[Jake Schuster]

The publisher recently handed me a copy of the book, which I'll read before I see the film. By the way, IFC on demand (Comcast) will be featuring it in a few weeks. (And the lack of acting skills may be due to the fact that some of the "actors" weren't--they were the real thing.)

I expect, because this really is a docudrama exposé, that it wouldn't have beats, structure or setpieces of a straight thriller.

[thewire]

Originally Posted by Jake Schuster

(And the lack of acting skills may be due to the fact that some of the "actors" weren't--they were the real thing.)

I expect, because this really is a docudrama exposé, that it wouldn't have beats, structure or setpieces of a straight thriller.

Right, and solid acting is what you sacrifice by hiring non-actors. There are some five stories in the film, only two are really interesting: the tailor who secretly works to create knockoff fashion dresses and the businessmen involved in illegal dumping of toxic waste. I have the book as well, but haven't read it yet, and I'm sure it's better than the movie. Saw a Q&A with the director and writer, and they said they had a tough time deciding on which stories to film from the many stories in the book.

[Telly]

I watched this a couple months ago and was really hoping for something much more. It was being touted as this huge, gritty masterpiece, the new era of mobster films... not so much. Frankly it was just boring as hell. Some interesting moments but nothing all that memorable. I also had to sit through a torturing 2 hours of a Q&A afterwards with the director. He couldn't speak a lick of English and rambled on forever. He did have a few memorable stories about the filming but it was just as underwhelming as the film pretty much.

[twk69045]

I liked the kids story, one staying with the original outfit and his friend switching to the other side in the war. I loved this film, I wish there would've been another hour or two.

Unfortunately they show one of the best moments in the trailer, when the kid lures the woman outside.

[Ravenlocks]

Originally Posted by Jake Schuster

I expect, because this really is a docudrama exposé, that it wouldn't have beats, structure or setpieces of a straight thriller.

That's pretty much how it seemed to me when I watched it. Five semi-interlocking stories, the crime organization the only real throughline tying them together. Definitely not a straight thriller. And definitely not the future of gangster movies. It's too true-to-life for that. I did find it compelling, though, not least because I knew what I was seeing on the screen was only thinly fictionalized. Pretty much killed my desire to visit the south of Italy.

I caught a Q&A as well (I wonder how many of us were at the same screening) and found some of the director's and cowriter's stories about the shoot fascinating. Again, a lot of it was the "this stuff is really happening" factor.

Luckily I hadn't seen the trailer, so the part with the kid and the woman had the intended impact on me.

[Gillyflower Cooms]

I kept dozing off through it...some good stuff here and there but no crime masterpiece IMHO.

[thewire]

Originally Posted by Gillyflower Cooms

I kept dozing off through it...some good stuff here and there but no crime masterpiece IMHO.

Agreed, not a crime masterpiece. A crime film with a few good things here and there, that's about it.

The seats weren't all that comfortable, and bad air conditioning didn't help.

Saw the Q&A in Century City in December. If you left the session early your parking wasn't going to get validated.