Non sono un assassino

Previous reviews of this film have been fairly accurate. Director Andrea Zaccariello - whose previous features have been comedies - presents a complicated plot with a mostly predictable ending and an underwhelming payoff for the story's most mysterious device. The photography is certainly stylish and the setup intriguing, and the main players do their best with their undeniable talents, but there are major problems with this film.

The character at the centre of it all - Deputy Police Superintendent Francesco Prencipe (Ricardo Scamarcio) is accused of killing his old friend Judge Giovanni Mastropaolo (Alessio Boni) who mysteriously summons him in the early hours for a meeting. The pair have not seen each other for two years, and the judge has been investigating organized crime. Surely he has been framed! The trouble is, as his thoroughly unlikeable character quickly unfolds, we don't particularly care.

Then there is the jerkiness of of the editing, which could be forgiven to an extent if characters and timelines were clearer and the actors playing their younger counterparts bore some resemblance to each other - it was unclear to me just who was who. All this meant little light was shed.

The music was used to effect (and I will have nothing bad said about prog-rock legends Emerson, Lake & Palmer!) and the characters in themselves were interesting, while the occasional twist did keep you involved, but in the end, this film left me flat.

Francesco is a cop whose success knows no boundaries. Getting promotion after promotion he also manages to maintain a family and personal life balance... until it all goes to hell. His wife leaves him and he is on trial for the murder of his best friend. His only hope for salvation is another buddy from old times - a lawyer with stalking issues, the last man in Town who wants to be in his corner. As the case unravels, old wounds are opened and when the truth is revealed no one will go unscathed.

I AM NOT A KILLER is a strange beast. The murder mystery premise is underwhelming, but the movie drags you in with its labyrinthine patchworkie structure. Switching between the different timelines it paints with broad strokes the picture of life-long friendship between three boys. What could go wrong?

The movie is well acted and superbly shot, its main problem being the script. The two hours of high expectations do not deliver a satisfying ending. The reveal is predictable and so simple, the question comes - why was the movie made in the first place, as every intriguing question and detail was doomed to disappoint.

Don't get me wrong, I AM NOT A KILLER is not a bad movie, it just never delivers on its promises.

This is essentially a straightforward story which has been presented in a curious, even pretentious style, and thus made it, or attempted to make it, more complex than it is.

The basic facts are withheld to hold some degree of suspense and then it is cut up, back and forth over time, so there is an uneasiness in the relationships shown at the time.

The nature and flow of the relationship are important but the editing has made them confusing. The relationship between lawyer and protagonist is a case in point. This process is not useful because there is a basic moral story at the center of the film which is dissipated by the editing and script choices.

It is here that the soundtrack seems to play a critical role. Emerson Lake and Palmer's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' saturates the film through chase sequences and Lake's vocal accompanies the lead as he struggles at various points. The lyrics of the songs seem to underline the action, and the character of the protagonist in the film. That seems the only justification for giving so much time to this work by the band. It is not entirely worthwhile.

There's a fairly interesting story inside this film but it needs re-cutting, shaping some scenes better, and losing the pretentious air of existential angst. And a better balanced soundtrack would help too.

I read the previous reviews which left me kinda astonished.

Read the disapprovals about 1.the editing(concerned about the complexity of the script/plot) 2.the easy understandable ending (really?!).

Given the facts that the idea of complexity is quite personal and that a trial has two possible main endings, even if I don't see how one can dislike the last 10 minutes, I declare that this idea of the ending as the usual final term of judgment is often just appropriate in the ordinary american movies and to the endings that seem groundless or specious, created just to justify the whole film.

A movie is journey.

And this one was particularly precious because of the very elegance in which it filled the holes of the story.

I loved every minute of it.

Ending included.

And the acting, the story and the plot.

But above all the ending.

PS: How do you justify european cinema to Americans, who would never have those cockroaches scenes.

I watched this on Rai last night, after reading the few user reviews on IMDb at that time.

For starters: The comments had made me expect something less. I found the film kind of more interesting than existing reviews suggested. However, nothing written about it seemed wrong.

The features of this movie are interestingly double edged. It suffers from lack of continuity as the conventional / linear kind of storytelling has been shattered way too much. However, the discontinuity was stylish enough to bear with the mood swings in expectation of something notable and fulfilling.

An early action scene (which, of course, was a flashback like most other scenes) surprised me as it looked like the adaptation of some pages from Diabolik or Satanik (Italian comics with criminal lead characters) as our cop jumped from rooftops in a snow mask chasing a guy. (I guess they used yamakasi stuntmen for that.) It was an early signal to how graphically dynamic and experimental this was to become despite the story which did not really require much physical or visual playtime.

I got excited as Beatrice addressed the main problems with our lead character by using some strong-but-legit words. For the real-time scenes weighed lighter than the flashbacks overall, even such interesting moments were losing their impact. It felt like I was watching a very long music video that relied on jumpcuts.

There were way too many locations and characters for what seemed to be the basic story. That approach should have been disturbing, and it kind of was, but only to an extent. There was something almost childishly sincere about this overconfidence on the part of the filmmakers, something that made me say "go on, keep telling..."

I found myself being entertained, though not in the way I was expecting. The power points of the movie were shaping up separately, like in stuff totally irrelevant to what would really matter.

For example, Claudia Gerini was at the top of her game as she acted the part of the prosecutor who was kind of sick all the time, something common with overworking career women, courtroom monologues cut by sniffles and coughs etc. That strangely functioned to provide depth to her character, but her character did not really matter with respect to what the movie was really about.

As some other commentators have underlined, one undeniably major problem with the film was how the younger versions of the three characters failed to resemble them. And I noted something extra weird: How come the judge (Alessio Boni) had aged so much more? I mean, their younger versions were at the same age range, but Boni was made to look at least 10 years older than the other two in the few real-time scenes. Was that a signal to how being a responsible and decent judge would affect one's biology in contrast to being a corrupt cop or a failure of a lawyer? Really? Was that worth messing with Boni's normal looks which would make him more compatible with his friends?

As for the conclusion: That would have been impressive had we not seen Usual Suspects or Primal Fear.

With such well-known and much imitated films on its back, "Non sono un assassino" fails to be shocking or groundbreaking.

Still, interesting and entertaining enough. Especially if you go the extra mile to find meaning in details, like, if you consider those scenes with the bug as Kafka references.

As it was ending, I decided to give it a 6. But then came the very final scebe. The one in which the loser/lawyer/poet opened his door to whom we would expect the least. Having that particular thing as the final note of the whole experience softened and changed the overall mood of film so unexpectedly and so much that, I decided to award it with an extra point.

That, and that alone, is why I am giving this a 7.

P. S. "Arrivederci amore ciao" by Michele Soavi remains the most striking Italian crime fiction. Even remembering it gives me the chills. Check out that underrated gem.