Il Commissario Ricciardi

Beautifully and artfully produced series, set during the period of Mussolini's Fascist regime in Italy.

It is a character-driven series, centering on Ricciardi, a Detective Inspector in the police force, but also a Baron, who shuns the vanities of that ilk.

You get drawn not only into the character of Ricciardi, battling his demons, while yearning for love, but also the lives of the supporting characters he is surrounded by.

I found it to be extremely absorbing, and a captivating storyline, interspersed with the cases he solves.

It is dramatic, and romantic, and tragic, and beautifully done.

The scenery, the acting, the plots- everything is at its best. One of the most beautiful series I have ever seen. From the first episode I was captivated by Ricciardi. His longings, his sorrows, his flair: all are splendidly conveyed.

The side characters are also pleasant, well drawn. Very much enjoyed the dialogues, full of humor but also sensibility. I felt immersed in the story, as if I were on the streets of Naples myself. The first season is a masterpiece, but the second season is also very good: the ending is perfect as it is.

If I had to sum it up to one word that describes this series for me, it would be emotion. Pure, genuine emotion. A feast for the eyes and for the soul.

This is a great streaming series. Beautifully filmed (cinematography, editing, etc). Set in Italy during the Mussolini fascist regime, it's basically a crime investigation series, but it's totally in context of the history and politics of the time. Top-drawer acting, great drama. It's very much a character-driven work. The detective has his own personal story and "special" skill, like so many. Each episode follows smoothly from the prior one. What you would think would be "minor" characters are actually very essential to everything going on. There's great good and great evil. I cannot imagine it being anything less than one of the best I've seen.

This series is photographed beautifully so each scene looks like an old-master painting. Delightful to see. The characters are engaging and draw you in. However, aside from portrayal of the drive by fascism to dictate behavior and our character's resistance to it, the episodes have a fairy tale lightness to them. Not by any stretch of imagination the psychological gloom of Endeavour or the hard hitting of Line of Duty. Instead, an enjoyable entertainment with glimpses of amusement and tongue in cheek, set in a contrasting fascist background. As an instance of the unreality the viewer is inclined to indulge, our Detective is attracted to a neighbor living in an apartment across the street, but he and her both are made so uncomfortable with their entrancement that their contact is primarily that of looking at each other through their apartment windows.

Interesting to watch despite its unbelievable aspects.

I came here actually surprised by the low rate given by MADB, but after I realised it is actually worthless, I decided to write a short review to give a more unbiased overview of this mini serie.

It is a crime story with a super-tiny bit of supernatural in it: you can like it or not, it is surely not the main point of the serie, but more like a background perk for the main character.

The crime plots, per se, are average: surely pretty complicated but neither trivial or super shocking.

In my opinion the two strong points that make this serie unique are the setting and the shooting. The setting is the birth of fascism in Italy: the reconstruction of scenes, dresses, habits and feeling is manical! Never seen something so scrupulously precise outside documentaries (and sometimes not even in those). The shooting is also incredible (for Italian stardards): the use of lights and filters gives a feeling like almost being in a comic book.

For me is by far one of the best series from Italy of the last 20 years and an absolute must-see if you like the genre and/or the setting.