Hammamet

If you don't know much about Bettino Craxi's life and political actions, it can be quite difficult to keep up with the story of this film. The story concentrates only on the character of Craxi and his point of view on the scandal that he was part of. Gianni Amelio tried to compose this film basically only from the thoughts and philosophical monologues of Craxi without any real plot or twist, which I must say became pretty tiresome after 60 minutes. It is obvious the whole film heavily relies on Pierfrancesco Favino as Craxi (who was simply masterful), but I wish it had more to it than just a great acting performance. I was also questioned by the mysterious character of the son of one of Craxi's former friends, who seeks truth about Craxi and also his own father. Perhaps this character should represent viewers or people affected by his actions also looking for the truth, but it felt like this character didn't really fit the whole atmosphere of this picture. If it had been at least 15 minutes shorter I would have mabe recommended it, but in spite of Favino's great performance this film feels quite forgettable.

Only human drama, when you talk about a polician you must talk about his political acts.

This film it's a not-storical narration based just on the ideas of the daughther, a woman that is never been objective. And we can understand her, but not who exploit her.

The damage that italian politic called Craxi (not nominated in the film but too easy to recognize) come out in the scandal know as "tangentopoli" is really very hard to forget and it's incredible like a movie can ignore what's happened in the latest 80's end early 90's.

Craxi wasn't the only guilty, that's sure. But this is never been a reason for absolution.

Favino it's a great actor, and all the cast is very good but in this kind of movie we can't close up on the artist,

Main actor is great, movie has some nice parts but the pace is slow and expecially at the end loses grip. Maybe it needs a better cut. How accurate its' historically is also a nice question....

Francesco Favino has definitely delivered a great acting, but regarding the script and the whole story, a continuous lack of history documentation and a very poorly report on what was going on during those years. Also an overrated point of view of a man that didn't escape from justice only but from the fear of what he did more than anything.

If you grant (a lot of) indulgence to the controversial protagonist, you'll enjoy this nostalgic movie (Amelio is the right director), taste some subtleties, and praise the great performance of the lead actor - "adesso li fa tutti Favino", and for a very good reason - and the whole cast. On the other side, even forgetting about history, you'll also notice the flaws: the most important political facts are just fainted, the identities are hidden (even ridiculously, as for Craxi's sons), there's no real plot (the Vincenzo's son escamotage does not work) which contribuites to the image of a insufferable crumbling king