Quo vado?

i saw the Spanish dubbed version of this film with my wife who is a Spanish Civil Servant. The Spanish Civil Service and government structure is similar to that of Italy, so the humor, much of which rests upon the way the system works, is easily understood in Spain. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I heard my wife on at least a couple of occasions guessing the next bureaucratic maneuver that the recalcitant civil servant would use in his effort to maintain his position. The film effectively uses both Nordic and Latin stereotypes. It brought me back to the days of my youth, when movies such as "La Dolce Vita" or "Bread and Chocolate" made me laugh out loud, while providing me with an education on the difference between cultures.

The movie is a true comedy. Its only drawback is its very limited audience. It's a movie made for Italians and Greeks. Germans, North Europeans and others should not waste their time on this. They will not be able to conceive the majesty of it. They are also kindly requested not to ruin the overall rating of this masterpiece with their votes. :-) Thank you.

The movie has been acclaimed for having underlined some sad aspects of the Italian economical and political world, using a comical facade. It is a sort of walk through different Italian regions, characterized by common stereotypes.

I found this movie enough boring and repetitive, and lacking of real comical elements that could last in my mind and let me laugh again and again. The storyline is very flat and expected.

Script and direction are poor, such as the performance of many actors. Maybe the only positive element are the songs, written by Zalone himself, that can sound funny and well-suiting the context.

This could be a good movie to watch with your family to have some laughs. It is nothing more than this and I will never be tired of repeating his success in Italy is undeserved and justified only by an efficient promotional system.

I laughed out loud, most of the film, and I'm not sure why. It felt almost like a dirty pleasure. The movie portrays and even celebrates several aspects of Latin/Mediterranean cultures (which are to a great extent inherited by most Latin American countries). I felt it represented my people and it resonated with me.

It does a great job caricaturing the profile of the natural born public worker, who aspires nothing more than a post in public office and the security that comes with it.

It uses Nordic cultures to contrast traditional Italian values, and how the world is changing, and what is politically correct, versus what older generations expected.

All in all I found it a refreshing break from Hollywood based humor and mindset, the whole you gotta be a winner thing, you gotta be a passionate worker vs the more plain joy de vivre that celebrates life, and does not need work to justify its existence.

We have certain ... well prejudices about different nationalities. Sometimes even the people of a land can see certain things that can be attributed to a lot of people. Take Italians for example ... they have a charm about them, but they also can be quite hot headed. Now obviously that is not true of every single one of them.

But the movie makes fun of these preconceptions we and they themselves have. Like waiting in a line patiently. Again if you dissect the movie and you feel this is offensive, you will not hav fun watching this at all. Which would be a shame because through all the things that are said and shown (the love of the mother is another major thing, gender roles in general), this takes them and makes fun of them.

And all that with some heart added to it. The ending may be a bit too much (and also quite the radical change from one second to the other as it seems), but it still works if you let it.