Ginostra

In Italy, in the Sicilian island of Ginostra, Matt Benson (Harvey Keitel) is a FBI agent assigned for the protection and investigation of Ettore Greco (Mattia de Martino), the son of Stefano Greco, a cooker of the Mafia executed with his family by one of the local boss. The boy witnessed the crime and Matt wants also to find out who has double-crossed him in the protection of the boy's father. This long story is very boring, having a confused screenplay without credibility. Who could imagine an experienced American agent, who does not speak Italian, bringing his family for a period of vacation in Mafia territory while performing an important investigation of a crime committed by one of the mobster boss? The great cast and the beautiful `sightseeing' of wonderful landscapes in the Italian islands and the gorgeous eyes and lips of Francesca Neri exhaustively showed by the director Manuel Pradal is not enough to make this movie attractive. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): ` O Vulcão Ginostra' (` The Volcano Ginostra')

I had pretty high hopes of this film, primarily due to it having a couple of decent actors. Unfortunately the whole thing doesn't work at all. The attempt at a plot is just terrible. Some of the editing is very bad, for example, Keitel standing on a elevated road, and a second later getting on a tram down at ground level with no explanation as to how he got down there (that part's probably on the cutting room floor.) I also think some of the problem is it tries to be an artistic film but doesn't have any interesting plots or story, except for the tiniest interesting part at the swimming pool. I ended up just laughing at the stupidity of the whole thing.

I saw this movie at the Toronto Filmfest and had such high hopes... soon to be dashed. The plot is both confused and boring, leaving the audience incapable of identifying with the characters. The backdrop of an erupting volcano tries to give the film tension but merely confuses the storyline. Harvey Keitel manages to make some of the movie at least watchable but this movie rated high on the numb-bum-omiter... for a movie pegged at 135 mins it felt like 4 hours.

The whole audience was left in stunned silence at the end of the movie. When the Q and A started the director was asked "what were the evil nuns about? " he didn't seem to know what they were there for either... I'd like to think it was a nod to Monty Python ;-)

I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival. It sounded good on paper: Harvey Keitel plays a F.B.I. agent protecting the son of a murdered informant in Italy and Andie McDowell is his wife. I like Harvey Keitel but it felt like he was sleep walking through this film. There was no chemistry between him and Andie McDowell and she seemed more like window dressing than a solid female character. The film was slow and didn't lead to anywhere. You couldn't get into the characters and didn't care about them either way. Some of the Italian scenery was interesting but couldn't compensate for the weak script and poor editing.

There is little to add to the other comments about this lengthy bore with its handsome images of an erupting volcano and lovely villas, its bad continuity, lack of chemistry between MacDowell and Keitel, generally wooden or uncoordinated acting, meandering, incomprehensible plot with an illogical set up (FBI man takes wife and kid to a dangerous assignment) and its preposterously heroic 11-year-old boy (let's not be too hard on newcomer Mattia De Martino: he does his best to impersonate a tough, angry kid; his acting is more convincing than Keitel's). I do want to mention something that drew me to rent the DVD besides the combination of Keitel, Harry Dean, and Asia Argento, and the fact that Pradal's first (and previous) film, 'Marie baie des anges' (1997) is haunting and evocative and original and 'stunningly beautiful' (Stephen Holden, NYTimes). This is the fact that Tonino Benacquista worked on the screenplay. Benaquista has been a fantastic collaborator with Jacques Audiard on 'Sur mes lèvres' ('Read My Lips') and 'De battre mon coeur s'est arreté' ('The Beat My Heart Skipped'). Well, Benacquista's talents did not help here any more than anybody else's. His participation may have been limited. He is more permanently listed on Pradal's subsequent (2006) 'Un crime'('A Crime'), which has gotten higher marks, and I'm curious to see that. Apparently it has just come out in a US DVD (July 2009) so it will eventually be available for rental. I haven't given up, because 'Marie baie des anges' is an experience one can go back to again and again. If Pradal could make that, he ought to be able to make another good film.