TRE UOMINI E UNA GAMBA (1997)
(THREE MEN AND A LEG) (1997)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Just like the rest of Europe, Italian film industry has seen the better
days. Once powerful enough to rival Hollywood in the glamour and
prestige, Italian filmmakers are now struggling to escape arthouse
ghetto. Taking a cue from their French and Spanish neighbours, at
least some Italians are trying to rejuvenate their cinema industry by
films directed towards pleasing ordinary audience rather than
snobbish critics. In doing so, some of them have shown ability to give
Hollywood and their fellow countryman Roberto Benigni a run for
their money. Most formidable is the quartet of directors - Aldo
Baglio, Giovanni Storti, Giacomo Poretti and Massimo Venier - that
became famous due to their successful 1997 comedy TRE UOMINI E
UNA GAMBA.
Of those four men three - billed in the film simply as "Aldo",
"Giacomo" and "Giovanni" - appear before the camera and are
introduced as trio of neurotic assassins in Dallas 1963. This prologue
is revealed as nothing more than "movie within movie" and the plot
is quickly set in modern day Milan where three men - who share
their first names with actors playing them - work in hardware store
owned by vulgar and tyrannical nouveau riche businessman Cecconi
(played by Carlo Crocollo). Two have secured their jobs by marrying
Cecconi's daughters and Giacomo is about to do the same. Trio
prepares to travel to the south of Italy where Cecconi lives. Their
father-in-law wants them to deliver a wooden leg, which is actually a
masterpiece by renowned artist Garpetz. During the travel trio
experiences all sorts of problems and meets beautiful vacationer
Chiara (played by Marina Massironi), which is for Giacomo enough
to start reconsidering his upcoming marriage.
Almost everyone involved in this project, including Massironi, had
years of experience in theatre, stand-up comedy and television. They
also had experience of working together on popular television show
MAI DIRE GOL. This reflects in display of formidable comic abilities
and perfect interaction. On the other hand, quality of writing, while
sufficient for individual sketches, leaves something to be desired
when it comes to feature-length plot. This is problem is solved by
using the template of a road movie which allows TRE UOMINI E
UNA GAMBA to drift in various directions.
The quality of humour is surprisingly good. Those accustomed to
Hollywood standards of comedy are going to be awed by the
authors' lack of "political correctness" and other forms of self-
censorship that had castrated American film industry. On the other
hand, authors never go over the top and the film always keeps its
human dimension. The only problem that this film might encounter
is outside Italian borders. Humour in some scenes is difficult to
understand for those who don't have at least some familiarity with
social, cultural and political issues of modern Italy. Dream sequence
that refers to regional animosities between Italian North and South is
one of the examples. The ending is a little bit abrupt. However, those
are the minor flaws. TRE UOMINI E UNA GAMBA deserves to be
watched all over the world just as it deserved commercial success in
Italy.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
Review written on October 11th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
========== X-RAMR-ID: 38789 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1326879 X-RT-TitleID: 10004587 X-RT-AuthorID: 1307 X-RT-RatingText: 7/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews