So says 15-year-old Nico (Francesco Di Napoli), when ageing Camorra boss, Don Vittorio (Renato Carpentieri) asks him why he doesn’t try to get rich through the ‘beautiful game,’ rather than the very ugly game of organised crime.

In 2008, Roberto Saviano’s fact-based book on the Neapolitan mafia (Camorra), Gomorrah, was adapted into a successful film, directed by Matteo Garrone.

Now, Claudio Giovannesi has adapted and directed another of Saviano’s books, once more with the author collaborating on the screenplay.

The English title, Piranhas, can’t really capture the sense of the original Italian, La Paranza dei Bambini. Paranza is a local speciality – a dish of mixed small fish, fried. The term, however, is also applied to child gangs exploited by Camorra families.

Young Nicola (Nico) is the lead figure in a local kids’ gang. Their rivals, the Quartieri gang live in an adjacent district. Nico’s mother runs a dry-cleaning business and, like others in her area, pays “protection” money to the local gangsters.

Nico befriends the Striano brothers, Agostino (Pasquale Marotta) and Limone (Carmine Pizzo). They are the sons of a former boss (now disgraced and labelled a grass). Their uncle (their father’s righthand man) is dead. The Strianos, however, still possess enough of their family’s ill-gotten gains to impress Nico’s poverty-stricken gang.

Although an immediate bond is formed between Nico and Agostino, it is soon fractured when Nico goes to work for the Camorra boss who replaced Striano senior. Soon, Nico and his mates are selling dope to students, collecting “payments” from market stallholders, and flashing the cash on designer goods.

Our Romeo uses the money to impress his Juliet – Letizia (Viviana Aprea). Though this is not quite Montagues and Capulets, Letizia’s father runs a restaurant on the home turf of the Quartieris.

Nico has just managed to persuade his boss, Lino Samataro (Aniello Arena) to stop taking protection money from his mum, when the boss is arrested at a family wedding. Seeing an opportunity, the ambitious Nico suggests to Agostino that they should chase out the few remaining members of Samataro’s gang (who are outsiders, anyway) and run their district themselves.The boys soon realise that one gun does not a Camorra family make.

Nico pays a call on Don Vittorio – ageing and effectively under house arrest. It’s not clear why Don Vittorio reverses his original view that the notion of 15-year-olds running the decrepit back streets of Naples is laughable, but change it he does. Nico (and his mates) get all the guns they can handle – there’s a highly plausible scene of the boys trying out their new “toys” on a rooftop, with a firework display for cover.

Having fond memories of the generosity of the Striano gang, Nico strives to mimic him – buying new shirts for his little brother’s football team, telling business and stall holders that there will be no more extortion. He revels in his moment in the sun – neighbours shout a cheery ‘Buongiorno!’ from the square below as he takes his morning coffee.

There are silly, boyish moments that also ring true: Nico’s gang taunt their (more grown-up) rivals at a local nightclub; as thanks for the weapons, Nico takes Don Vittorio an enormous TV set so they can play video games together.

Dark clouds begin to gather. It becomes dangerous for Nico to visit Letizia now that some of the younger Quartieri gang also have weapons. When she refuses to leave her father to come and live with Nico, they part. Can Romeo survive without his Juliet?

The revelation that the younger Striano brother, Limone, has reverted to extorting the storekeepers causes an unbreachable rift between Nico and Agostino (it’s one of the screenplay’s failings not to realise that this should be a tale of Bassanio and Antonio, as much as Romeo and Juliet).

Then, much-loved little brother, Cristian (Luca Nacario) finds the cache of weapons hidden on the roof…

While not the ground-breaking insight into Camorra life that Gomorrah seemed to present, Piranhas is a rewarding (if rarely engrossing) experience. The young actors are faultless and the film is packed with outstanding cinematographic moments – Daniele Cipri exploiting the decadent wonders of back street Naples, and the photogenic young cast, to memorable effect. The closing “tableau vivant” is perhaps the highlight of the entire film (and a lesson in narrative restraint).

Digital Download Release Date: 13th July
Director: Claudio Giovannesi
Cast: Francesco Di Napoli, Viviana Aprea, Mattia Piano Del Balzo, Ciro Vecchione, Ciro Pellechia
Distributor: Blue Finch Film Releasing
Digital Platforms: iTunes, Amazon, Sky, Virgin, Google Play & Chili
Rating: 15
Runtime: 105 Minutes

Read our review of Life with Music starring Patrick Stewart, Katie Holmes and Giancarlo Esposito

The post Piranhas: Film Review appeared first on Quays Life.

In Life with Music, (directed by Claude Lalonde, screenplay by Louis Godbout) Stewart plays Sir Henry Cole – a renowned classical pianist, whose nerve seems to be failing even as his physical abilities hold good.

A tedious post-concert press conference is redeemed by the presence of Helen Morrison (Holmes), a smart, beautiful and charming writer from the New Yorker. Far from immune to her charm, he nevertheless declines her request for an in-depth interview.

Morrison is persistent without being irritating. When she comes to his rescue after he freezes in front of a small group of onlookers while trying out a new piano, Cole relents.

A friendship forms; one that is welcomed by Sir Henry’s agent, Paul (Giancarlo Esposito), who has his eye fixed firmly on the prize – a concert at the Royal Albert Hall which will simultaneously be streamed around the world. As Paul puts it to Helen, this will be an ‘exclamation point’ in Henry’s career.

Henry is a kindly and generous man, inviting a young fan, an aspiring pianist, out onto the stage to play the concert piano after one show in Boston. He is, however, increasingly fearful of facing an audience. He freezes again – this time mid-Chopin in front of a packed concert hall. Paul calls Helen, who rushes to the rescue.

By this point, the friendship between writer and pianist is teetering on the brink of becoming an intimate relationship (fear not, you will witness nothing beyond a parting kiss).

When Helen accepts Henry’s invitation to travel with him to Europe, it appears he may not only conquer his fears, but also begin to heal from the tragic sudden loss of his wife in Prague (a story we are told, not shown).

Life with Music has a lot going for it. A soundtrack founded on the work of the great German composers – Bach, Schumann, Beethoven – with smatterings of Chopin, Liszt and others mixed in along the way, can scarcely lose. Stewart, Holmes and Esposito are all highly watchable. Add to that some spectacular scenery, and you would seem to be onto a sure-fire winner.

Sadly, however, the realisation diminishes rather than augments the concept’s potential. The problem is almost entirely with the script. Is this the tale of a great artist struggling with a crisis of confidence (and/or the decline of his powers due to age)? Or is it, primarily, an age-gap romance (and all-but 40 years is quite an age gap!)?

I’m all for gentle stories, lovingly told, but too much here is in the minor key, instead of tapping their feet to the rhythm, an audience will sense the dragging of heels.

Conventions are introduced but not explored – Sir Henry has a single surreal dream leading to a piano with missing keys; later, he encounters his hero, Beethoven, who seems busy re-enacting Caspar David Friedrich’s famous Romantic painting, “Wanderer above a sea of fog”.

The dialogue is often too philosophical and contemplative – as if difficult emotions have already been fully comprehended and resolved. Dramatically-speaking Holmes’s character is almost literally an angel – having no purpose, no goal of her own, other than to rescue Sir Henry. Even Clarence, in It’s a Wonderful Life, had his own agenda.

It might be argued that the essence of art is to present old and familiar things in new and surprising ways. So, whilst there’s much to be said for age-gap relationships (between proper grown-ups like these) why – since this is the 21st century and several of the greatest living classical pianists are women – couldn’t we have had an older woman being charmed by a younger man?

“A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.” (Ludwig van Beethoven).

Well, maybe so…

Digital Download Release Date: 27 July 2020
Director: Claude Lalonde
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Katie Holmes, Giancarlo Esposito
Distributor: Blue Finch Film Releasing
Digital Platforms: iTunes, Amazon, Google, Sky, Virgin, Rakuten and Chili
Rating: 12
Runtime: 96 mins

The post Life with Music: Film Review appeared first on Quays Life.