Mafioso.

"The mafia and comedy genres mingle more comfortably than they have any right to in Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso, the latest reclamation project from Rialto Pictures, who no doubt hope to recreate the success of their last discovery, Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows," writes Matt Singer for IFC News. "They'll likely come up a little short: though Mafioso is arguably a more compelling film, Lattuada doesn't have Melville's following or critical standing."

But AO Scott, writing in the New York Times finds "at once a giddy mixture of farce, satire and opera buffa and a closely observed drama of social dislocation and cultural confusion."

For the Voice's J Hoberman, it "careens from comedy of manners (and neo-realist travelogue) to something far more hilariously shocking."

"[W]hat begins as a comedy of disconnection becomes a tragicomedy of connection - of roots that go deep and branches that span continents," writes David Edelstein in New York.

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek admires the lead performance from Alberto Sordi, "an elegant comic actor in the vein of America's William Powell; the world may confound him, but it can never rumple him."

Posted by dwhudson at January 19, 2007 5:40 AM