I cento passi

I saw this movie just recently and loved it. I was sort of forced into watching it (I as trying to get my friend to bring out "Alien" instead, but that didn't work), and I found it an amazing experience. The performances are sizzling, especially from the title role of Peppino played by Luigi Lo Cascio. For a mafia film I found there to be an incredibly low amount of violence. If only it hadn't been forgotten, because it is a truly underrated gem. No Godfather, or even Pulp Fiction, but still a heart-warming and powerful film.

Unmissable.

7/10

I was so shocked to learn that when Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were assassinated in Sicily in Spring/Summer 1992, that the people of Sicilia were standing up and protested to the organized crime. Yes, I do remember. I read a Book called " The Excellent Cadavers" by Alexander Stille, when he talks about the bloody ordeal of Ani-mafia judges who were murdered by Toto Riina during the 70's and 80's. This man Peppino Impastato took it upon himself and spoke out against this terrorist society in the 1970's. But in the end, with that task he was murdered. This was a good film and I enjoyed as much. Great performances. I CENTO PASSI is a film that really hit me because of my appreciation of the culture and the language of the Island of Sicily. This is a film that captures a man who sacrificed his life for a just cause to a bunch of murderous cowards.

Rating: 7.6

Forget all the movie you have seen since now about mafia. Forget good people to one side and bad people to the other, forget blood and gunshots. This is the real story of a boy from Sicily who's family is actually very well connected with Mafia, so to fight Mafia he has to fight against people he loves, and make them take the same risks he takes in this fight. It is also a good portrait about Sicily's way of life and youth rebellion of seventies. I'm sorry for those have to see it in a different language from italian (I should say sicilian) because original dialogs worth it. A word about scriptwriters, Monica Zapelli and Claudio Fava. Their good job comes from their knowledge about Mafia, and their courage actually fighting it.

The Hundred Steps is a GREAT movie, not to be missed by anybody who has grown up swallowing the godfather saccharine. Yes, the Sopranos might be entertaining, but this is real. It does not take more than an ounce of violence to create an incredible dramatic tension. The never changing Sicilian Landscape, the stone faced mafiosi and the fear that you breathe during all the movie make this much more than the unfortunate story of a one-man rebellion.

A very careful reconstruction of a real episode developing in Sicily from the '50s to the '70s. The film has the pace and the political idealism of "Z" by Costa Gavras. Americans might be interested to see the Mafia depicted in its Italian home-base, and relations between the (poorer, but more "original") Sicilian Mafiosi and their American counterparts / relations. This is a film on the protesting youth of the '70s, as well, with a lot of music like in the THE BIG CHILL. In Italy the film has been much discussed for its Mafia theme, but underneath there is a lot of family psychology.