A.C.A.B. - All Cops Are Bastards

There are a couple of problems with this movie, the characters are lacking a proper backstory, the actors aren't good either, but after all it doesn't matter. Because these are minor issues in a much better story.

The most surprising thing for me was that there's no right or wrong in this movie. There are no moral winners, the director let's the story flow and it's up to the viewer to decide what to think. Another positive aspect of the film is, that it's very down to earth. It's about current social issues in Europe like immigration, ethnic tensions and radical movements based on the inability of the justice. (Maybe this would make difficult for non-European viewers to connect, but it worked for me.)

So if you're tired of movies about slavery and oversimplified topics that are way beyond us, here's a film about the world we're living in and the issues we have to deal with.

The story about four Cops (in italy the call them Celerini, As An insult) and A new rookie, they dream justice , and they'll do anything to get It. Sollima (director of the film Suburra,Sicario 2 ,and a new episodes of the series Gomorrah) made a Great work, he is able to direct violence and pulp scenes . The screenplay works well , Favino,Nigro and Giallini Aldo work well. Justin amazing(a).

ACAP is a raw and honest attempt at showing the ignored lives of riot cops, at least their personal lives and internal issues are seldom spoken of! Shot and narrated in a Documentary style, it gives the movie a gritty reality, well complemented by some good performances from the cast. The background score does add value to the drama, the ending truly class.

Italian being an alien language, I had to keep my eye on subtitles as well, which did mar my movie experience - I did watch it a second time without subtitles. I had to make a thorough study on the whole plot, the immigration issues and the hatredness for cops - it was all new to me. And once i got the hang of the issues being discussed, I really did love the movie, yea it might not be the the action thriller or biopic thriller the global audience would go after, but it deserves to be in the Global panorama, for the rawness and gruesome reality it shows, obviously the technical side should take a bow for making an outstanding movie product. 7.5/10

A.C.A.B is a phrase I grew up with in the U.K in the early eighties and was often seen tattooed on the fingers, necks and one time forehead of skinheads. I was intrigued to see it being used in Italy, that drew me to see the film.

A.C.A.B the film centers on the exploits of small group of riot police in Rome.I found it to be very well paced, realistic though budgetary constraints made the riot scenes seem a little under populated. The characters were well developed and the action scenes well directed.

There was a lot of racism in the film and the direction is kind of ambivalent about it.

To conclude I would urge you to watch this film and form you own opinion.

The movie was an excellent insight of the Italian riot police ("celere"), through the everyday lives of 4 policemen. During the whole movie the tension is always high and it's been for me one of the rare cases where I never, at any point, took the part of the protagonists. Who are, as the title says, literally mean bastards. Despite that, it's a very powerful and emotional movie that reflects how the Italian society has degraded in the last decades (racism, violence, intolerance, corruption, etc)

The use of the photography and the music (great soundtrack!) is always well placed, adding more depth to many scenes. The movie is loosely based on the book with the same name, which is a reportage of a journalist based on true stories heard from real policemen.

I saw it at the Love & Anarchy movie festival in Helsinki, where the director was present and answered the audience's questions. I strongly disagree about the movie being pro-police or fascist. Actually, it's pretty much the opposite. In fact, it takes an almost perfect neutral point of view, trying to show the bare facts. All the opinions come from the viewer, not from the director. He (Stefano Sollima) was also pointing that out since he didn't want to express his judgment. And by the way, he's politically left oriented but the movie has nevertheless been criticized by all the sides: Police, hooligans, right parties and left parties (meaning that he managed to reach his goal...)