La scuola cattolica

I wasn't aware that this was a retelling of an actual rape murder in Italy and so I felt there was a lack of context for much of what happens, which sort of colors my review.

The first two thirds of the film follow a group of Catholic school boys -most of whom look to be in their mid twenties with receding hairlines- and their families, observing their caricaturized machismo behavior and sexual frustration through a bleak lens, portraying all of them as shady, violent deviants in the making. The director seems to be making the argument that all the boys are capable of the crime by showing us glimpses of their toxic bro culture and unsavory views on women, but it's done in such a broad way that we never really engage with any character in particular. One boy narrates the film, but there is no real protagonist and nobody to root for, bar the two female victims who appear in the final 30 mins.

Many of the plot points feel random and irrelevant to the over-arching narrative. For example, a lot of time is spent setting up one of the boys as being gay, but this never leads to anything. In another scene there is a traumatic accident involving the narrator's younger sister, but it just comes and goes without a sense of why this event is significant, or what imprint it has left on the characters.

The final third is a drawn out re-enactment of how three of the boys lure two young women to a house, imprison, rape and murder one of them. It's disturbing and believably acted, but my lack of context led me to feel like it came out of nowhere. The ending left me with a hollow feeling and while I appreciate it brought the victim's true story to my attention, the film didn't convince me of any of the sub textual points it was making about religion or masculinity. It was overall very scattered and confused.

Groups of spoiled rich boys in their teens who appear to to flout the normal rules of the game, to push each other both physically and mentally until something snaps under the stress. The majority come from comfortable backgrouds where in most cases materialism replaces love, where it seems parents are quite happy providing they themselves can shirk most of their responsibilities towards their offspring. True, curfews are set, orders are given but generally there is NO check or follow-ups made to ensure rules aren't being broken. September 1975, 3 of the boys, Gianni Guido, Angelo Izzo and Andrea Ghira have made an agreement to kidnap and rape and/or murder two girls they vaguely know, Rosaria and Donatella. At the time, the Italian Penal Code only recognises RAPE as a MORAL crime NOT a Criminal one. They lay out their plans and begin to put them into action. The results are tragic for all concerned.

La scuola cattolica is a bad film that mistreats a story that should have been handled with more care, or rather, that exploits it to gain more visibility. The film has nothing to say and, in an attempt to hide it, it crumples over an empty and confusing structure accompanied by a narrator's voice blurting out what appear to be introspective profundities. As an Italian, I already knew this case, and hoped it would be treated with more justice, as an attempt to really understand why what happened happened, and to give a voice to the victims of the case. Instead, it is not clear what the director wants to do, other than displaying a gratuitous attempt to shock, some vague form of social polemic, and pointless observations on religion.

I grew up in a catholic school so i can relate to this however its a step above in all honesty. At no time during my time in Catholic school in NYC did I feel above the law or the feelings of human decency, in that aspect the few portrayed here obviously had major personality / mental issues with how they seen other human beings, especially young woman. My wife took offense to this movie, the arrogance & lack of human decency among the teenage boys was very over the top for her.

I do not feel on the whole, Catholicism is the subject here but a few bad eggs with no regard for others, the total lack of empathy made it clear it was more than a religious situation, but poor upbringing & moral quality.

The title is flawed as religion had nothing to do with the horrible criminal behavior.

I would of rated it better but the religion is not the issue and it should not be in the title.

I think that this is a solid and largely well done film. The acting is fine and the exposition of the family, school, and social life of the students who ultimately committed the Massacro del Circeo gives some food for thought. Some historical facts are missing so that the story told by the film may give a slightly biased impression, but this is normal for films of this kind that are based on real events but do not attempt to be documentaries, still somewhat problematic. I wouldn't rate the film as outstanding; if you read even just the official announcements about the film in advance, you will know where things are going (although I hadn't studied the story enough to know everything in advance, there was the odd little surprise), and the "rigid catholic school and disfunctional families bring forth disturbed characters" theme wasn't exactly done for the first time, but anyway, I could get something out of this. 7/10.