The horizon in Stefano Sollima’s new gangster thriller Adagio doesn’t invite you to dream, the distance disappears behind clouds of smoke and flames. And if someone indulges in more in Sollima’s Rome, then he pays dearly for it. This is what Adagio tells, in which a harmless young man triggers a game of cat and mouse between corrupt police officers and gangsters.
The gangster thriller concludes a trilogy
In Hollywood, the director made a name for himself with Sicario 2 and Tom Clancy’s Merciless. In Italy, on the other hand, it is associated with series (Romanzo criminale) and the films ACAB – All Cops Are Bastards (2012) and Suburra (2015), which opened a loose trilogy about interdependence, politics and the police in the Eternal City. Adagio represents the conclusion of this trilogy, but You don’t have to have seen the other films to understand them.
In the elegantly narrated opening, young Manuel (Gianmarco Franchini) heads to a nightclub where he is tasked with capturing compromising footage of a politician. Once there, he gets cold feet and draws the wrath of his clients. Manuel is now on the hit list of corrupt police officers and seeks help from a friend of his father’s. The spirits he awakens from their slumber were once feared mafiosi. As the film’s fiery metaphor underscores, all roads in Sollima’s Rome lead back to violence.
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adagio
In addition to the atmospheric shots of Rome at night, these aging gentlemen are a real sight to behold in Adagio. The Italian acting greats Valerio Mastandrea (Pasolini), Toni Servillo (La Grande Bellezza) and Pierfrancesco Favino (Suburra) play the gangsters who have been left alone and forgotten by their profession. A chill runs down the spine of Servillo’s frail papa, who has betrayed friend and foe alike and doesn’t think much of his son. Favino, on the other hand, enters the film as a sweating bundle of people. At least that’s the first impression.
Nothing is as it seems in Adagio
Sollima has a great deal of fun surprising us with the true essence of these men. Not that Adagio is a fun movie in any way. The Gangster thriller is badass and slick to the sweaty tip of Pierfrancesco Favino (who also directs a war film in Venice). The screenplay encounters its half-world figures freed from sentimentality. The same goes for the cops, who don’t shy away from gunning down a boy to supplement their pension.
Sollima puts common set pieces of the genre together so expertly in Adagio that one can overlook the lack of originality. It’s old-school crime entertainment, functional but with the necessary emotion, large-scale but closely watched. A a few confidently threaded set pieces (including the wistful finale) complete the positive impression. Genre fans are in good hands with Sollima, and Adagio is among his best films.
Adagio is in competition at the Venice Film Festival. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a German start date yet.