Tre uomini e una gamba

Nobody thought the first film of the three comedians could be so amusing and technically good. Nobody thought three comedians coming from TV can make film so well. In my opinion this film reaches peaks that remind Tarantino (!).

If we add to this that the humor of this trio is irresistible we have one of the greatest Italian films of '90s. I love it.

Aldo, Giacomo and Giovanni have to deliver an original Garpetz to a Maffia boss who is gonna be the father-in-law of one of the guys. A Garpetz? Garpetz is a famous sculptor...a VERY funny road movie with several intermezzi develops. At one time, Aldo, the Southern Italian, has a hilarious dream in which he is Dracula and the other guys are Northern Italian Leghisti (separatists). In the beginning, there is a meta-film in which Pulp Fiction is satirized. And there's also a love story in the mix: Giacomo falls in love with Chiara, who sees the Garpetz (it's a leg out of wood, the boss says: "My carpenter could've made it better!")and says: "Ma questo e' un Garpetz!" ("But this is a Garpetz!")The guys wonder: how did she find out? Until Giovanni comes up with the solution: "Se e' un Garpetz, e' una merda!" Don't miss this movie....neo-realism, too, is burlesqued in another meta-film....

From the beggining the movie takes a cooky turn with and "Italian" explanation of the JFK murder, follwed by humour that is fun, witty, and at times charming. Though I do not recommend this film to people who have not been exposed to italian culture, and speak the language, the film itslef is a breath of fresh air to come out of Italy.

As a recent Italian emigrant, I was able to fully enjoy this wonderful, sunny movie that has brought back to mind a lot of innuendos and down-to-earth jokes that, certainly, are not meant to be racist: quite the opposite, actually: every joke is firmly tongue-in-cheek.

The authors-actors also dare to play themselves, using their real names: this allows them to freely play with several styles of direction, always from their point of view, which somebody may define iconoclastic. The truth - in my personal opinion - is that they have full confidence in their own sense of humour and thus they have created a homage to more serious movie genres - from neorealism, to westerns, to 50's horror.

This is like Carl Barks when painting with oil: using a formal medium to portray less serious things.

It's a rare kind of humor, very nice! The problem is that is just in Italian, and even if it was in english it's not possible to taste Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo's speeches in other languages than their own ones. :)