I soliti ignoti

One day, there's gonna have to be a festival for heist-themed movies. "The Killing", "Topkapi", "The Italian Job", "The Bank Job" and the Ocean franchise are obvious entries, but Mario Monicelli's Academy Award-nominated "Big Deal on Madonna Street" ("I soliti ignoti" in the original Italian) also needs to be in there. Unlike most of the heist-themed movies - either lighthearted comedies or film noirs - this one is a farce. Basically, all sorts of mishaps befall the criminals in the process of the planning and execution. Talk about commedia dell'arte!

This strikes me as one movie that they had a lot of fun filming, and I highly recommend it. Don't listen to anyone who's not interested in watching old movies/black and white movies/foreign movies. If ever there were one of those movies that you have to see, it's this one. It's a mamma mia of the best type!

As is typical in most Italian comedies, Monicelli has taken a cup of post war Italy realism and stirred in a cup of scenes from the human condition along with a dash of physical comedy which makes 'Big Deal On Madonna Street' a bittersweet cake we all can enjoy.

Like DeSica and Visconti, Monicelli uses post war Italy as the atmosphere in which these characters find themselves trying to eke out their lives. The recurring Italian film maker's theme of man against a complicated, bureaucratic life is no more evident than here. Throughout the film, the characters impressively quote Italian law by chapter and verse however this does not help them as they all have spent time in jail. The absurdity of knowledge without benefit of improvement is a another theme used. As Toto waxes eloquently regarding the sundry ways to break into a safe (one which the film goer is led to believe he knows nothing about), these men attempt to gain knowledge which they believe will deliver the big score. However even with knowing the apartment is empty, the type of safe the valuables are in and the way to gain access to the safe, their plan is flawed by their inability to execute what seems to them to be a fool proof blue print for success.

While Monicelli's themes ring as clear as the bell that has Peppe il pantera (Gassman) on the canvas, the characterizations of this band of misfits are classic. A stuttering, would be fighter (Gassman), and an out-of-work photographer who has sold his camera to survive (Mastroianni)lead the crew. The scenes played between Gassman's 'everything's easy' attitude and Mastroianni's inquisitiveness provide the viewer with hilarious cat and mouse verbal trade-offs.

In the end, 'Big Deal On Madonna Street' strikes a chord for viewers because we have all felt, at times, completely helpless by the absurdity of life and our pursuit for 'the prize' that we perceive will deliver us from our situation. However like this crew at the end of the film, we wake up every morning and realize that it's back to work to grind out another day.

One character approaches another to get him to take the rap for a crime. But he can't do it, so he suggests someone else. The third character can't do it either. Soon a half dozen people are in search of someone to take the rap. They eventually decide that they need someone without a previous criminal record. But none of them knows anyone without a criminal record.

I had no idea it was going to be a comedy when I first started watching it. By the end I was laughing out loud. It's a little slow, but many Italian movies are a little slow and caper films usually build slowly. But it is thoroughly enjoyable with some gags that I've never seen anywhere else in film. Cosimo's bank heist was very amusing.

If you've just recently watched The Bicycle Thief, and are depressed by the bleakness of life shown there, this movie is the perfect antidote. It shows the lighter side of people who are down on their luck.

I suspect that it's hard to find this gem for rental purposes, which is a shame. A take-off on the classic French film noir, Rififi, it stands up wonderfully and deserves greater recognition. Monicelli is too little known as a director in the US, I think. Louis Malle attempted a remake of this some years back, to disastrous effect, and now there's a new attempt out, called "Welcome to Collinswood"; my hunch is that, while it might be better than the Malle version, it won't match the original. A group of bumbling small-time thieves plan and try to execute a heist, but nothing goes right. As the gang's leader, a punchy boxer with more attitude than ability, Vittorio Gassmann is wonderful, as is everyone else in the cast. Special notice should be given to the marvelous character comedian, Toto, and--in a small role, buried well down in the credits, the young Marcello Mastroianni. Also featured is another youngster, Claudia Cardinale. If you've seen Rififi, you'll find this comedy a particular joy. If you haven't, you'll like it, anyway. Why doesn't someone rerelease this?

As a veteran of heist movies, I think my opinion is valid when I say that it's not so much a spoof of heist films like Rififi as it is just a funny movie about thieves who bumble their way through what could be a much slicker and less complicated heist if the thieves from Rififi were pulling it off instead. The movie enjoys its fair share of little con tricks and bait-and-switch-oriented goings-on, mostly played for laughs of surprise. Perhaps Big Deal On Madonna Street is a little too laid back to really be as memorable as I was thinking it would be, but it is very funny. It has several great sight gags and well-timed moments of Italian-faced goofiness.

The most entertaining thing about the film is the fact that it's Italian. The Italian cast is so jampacked with overt stereotypes, everyone gesturing wildly and saying, "Mamma Mia!" The outcome of the heist is such a ridiculous slur on the comic strip archetype of Italians, something twice or thrice as hilarious to an American audience. However, the appeal is not just in the humor in what is either an Italian self-parody or an unaware display of every mocked Italian institution. It's also the extroverted, old-fashioned world of your average Italian in this film. The first half hour of the film is a bunch of characters scrambling to find a friend who will take the rep for someone for a little while in prison, and everything continually gets more complicated and more tangled, and so many different people end up in prison. Not only do I find it amusing how nonchalant everyone is in deciding whether they will do this favor that involves spending time in jail or not, but I'm also fascinated about the idea that in Italy, crooks aren't so much worried about what will happen to them when they go to prison as they're worried to death of what their mother will think of them or how their mother will be so wounded by what has come of her son. It's almost a beautiful mindset, if you ask me.

Big Deal On Madonna Street is no masterpiece, no movie that you desperately want to come back to, but it's very funny and an enjoyable piece of European cinema.