Excellent Cadavers.

"Opening with its hero's dramatic death on the highway, Excellent Cadavers is seldom at a loss for excitement," writes Joshua Land in the Voice. "The details may remain a bit sketchy for viewers unfamiliar with the miasma of Italian politics, but Berlusconi's anti-judicial rhetoric, which could have been copped from a Tom DeLay rant against activist judges, should provide an equal-opportunity shudder."

The New Republic's Stanley Kauffmann: "What is strangely transfixing about the film is our agreement, from the beginning, that the struggle is hopeless. The Mafia is there to stay (with American branches). What is equally strange is that though we know in advance the general shape of the events - from numerous films and press reports - the story grips."

Updated through 7/14.

"[Director Marco] Turco and [author Alexander] Stille do not dwell on the Mafia as a historical or sociological phenomenon, emphasizing its dysfunctional relationship with the postwar Italian state rather than its older roots in Sicilian culture," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "This may be part of their film's corrective intention: their Mafia is not the colorful, violent flowering of ancient Mediterranean peasant customs, but rather a thoroughly vicious organization bent on the subversion of democratic norms and the brutal elimination of anyone who dares to oppose its ambitions."

More from the AV Club's Noel Murray.

Online listening tip. Alexander Stille, author of the book on which this and another film have been based, was a guest on the Leonard Lopate Show on Friday. Related: At Salon, Farhad Manjoo reviews Stille's The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful Country with a Fabled History and Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes of Nanni Moretti's Il Caimano; the opening in March; first impressions of Bye Bye Berlusconi!.

Update: Martha Fischer at Cinematical: "In a time and field in which ego is frequently a driving force, to see two men [magistrates Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone] so free of pretense doing such important work is surprisingly moving."

Update, 7/14: "I can't speak too highly of Marco Turco's Excellent Cadavers," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "[J]ust as Italian fascism reinvented itself under Silvio Berlusconi, so did the Mafia adapt to a new era. In the end, Stille suggests, the more things change in Italy, the more they stay the same."

Posted by dwhudson at July 12, 2006 6:04 AM