This breathless biopic from director Michele Placido (Romanzo Criminale) chronicles the rise and fall of Renato Vallanzasca, a notorious Milanese gangster in the ’70s and ’80s who’s serving several life sentences.
Loosely based on two of Vallanzasca’s own books, it tears through his career in a flurry of bank robberies, kidnappings and prison breaks, with a commanding performance from a charismatic yet volatile Kim Rossi Stuart.
But the screenplay – the work of six writers – offers little psychological insight or socio-political context for its subject’s crime sprees.
