The Bad Guy Review: Rewrites the Rules Of The Crime Story With Brilliant Writing And Dynamic Direction | Episode 1-3 Amazon Prime
Cast: Luigi Lo Cascio, Claudia Pandolfi, Vincenzo Pirrotta, Selene Caramazza, Giulia Maenza, Antonio Catania
Director: Giancarlo Fontana and Giuseppe G. Stasi
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
It seemed to us the first thing to say in our review of the first three episodes of The Bad Guy (out of 6 total), the new TV series made in Italy by Prime Video. A show with a very local bittersweet aftertaste, which has the great intelligence (and cunning) to overturn the “usual mafia story” with a sarcastic and brilliant pop approach. The feeling is that of being in front of a story that shows itself to be canonical and then plays with the expectations of the public and with the rules of the genre, overturned with never-banal intelligence. Now we will explain where our enthusiasm comes from.
One detail is enough to tell everything. A detail to distance yourself from reality and at the same time make a story even more realistic. We are in an Italy that is almost our Italy. How do we understand this? From a billboard announcing the imminent construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. Absurd, right? A little what if that immediately puts us in the right perspective: we are inside a kind of dystopia bordering on the grotesque, which never ceases to be plausible.
The Bad Guy Review: The Story
We are in Sicily, Alternative but not too much, given that the mafia remains cancer to be eradicated. This is the black obsession of the tireless Nino Scotellaro, a magistrate who squirms between ambushes and wiretaps to catch bosses and criminals. A spontaneous vocation that made him sacrifice almost everything, making him the face of justice. Justice often has paradoxical retaliation. A justice that also in this quasi-Italy (as in ours) shows major flaws in the system. Because? Because Scotellaro, precisely the brave and loyal Scotellaro, suddenly goes on the side of the dead wrong when he is accused of aiding and abetting. The symbol of the fight against the mafia is tarnished by complicity with the mafia. Scandal, shame and dismay especially among the people who love him (a grumpy sister and a wife without a father killed by the mafia). Thus begins a path of physical and moral transformation of a disappointed and angry man, ready to review his principles and his obsessions.
The story is that of a magistrate who, pretending to be dead and resurrected with another name, will try to fight from within his fight against the mafia who has never seen real justice during his years in office. The story, therefore, once again focused on the dramas and consequences of the Cosa Nostra, but The Bad Guy contains a more general sense of the protagonist who has to face his nemesis, who could gradually end up resembling him more and more. Taken by the obsession of capturing the boss Mariano Suro (Fabrizio Ferracane), the prosecutor Nino Scodellaro (Luigi Lo Cascio) will end up falling into the trap of his torment and, at the same time, of his vanity, thus arriving at narrating a more universal story, which takes from the great classic topos to bring them into the six-part series.
But what The Bad Guy would have been different from any other mafia-related narrative, you can tell from the first impressions. Right from the initial episodes in which the rhythm of the story is already more syncopated than the average of Italian products, dictated by a fluency in writing and a cut-and-sew thought created before and after the staging, which advances pressingly, moving into the middle of the feud between mobster and magistrate. The transformation of Nino into Balduccio Remorais worthy of the most successful gangster movies yet the local soul remains perfectly coherent within a story that does not set itself any obstacle, bringing to fruition the idea of a series with an incessant pace, like the determination of its protagonist and the continuous defeats that he finds himself facing – the same ones for which he will probably decide to give in to crime.
The Bad Guy Review and Analysis
The narrative structure of The Bad Guy is solid and well thought out, and the plot is worthy of the best crime stories in the name of redemption and revenge, with unpredictable twists and many mysteries to reveal. There is no shortage of intrigue, and they seem destined to unravel well beyond the mere six episodes that make up the first season. In many ways, the protagonist’s evolution from hero to “bad guy” echoes that of Walter White and Jimmy McGill on the other side of the Atlantic in Vince Gilligan’s award-winning Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
At the same time, however, the one created by the Stasi-Fontana duo is also and above all an irreverent and over the top show, whose sharp black humor spares nothing and nobody. In the name of the best black comedy, the mythical and austere Italian imagery of the fight against the mafia is completely distorted and deformed, to the point of assuming a deliberately kitsch and exaggerated aftertaste, both when it concerns the forces of order and the world of crime families. A real pearl, in this sense, is the absurd WowterWorld water park which serves as a cover for the activities of the Tracina clan, and the hilarious staging of the commercial that opens the third episode.
Albeit with a more accentuated comic vein, we can say that The Bad Guy fits fully, even on an aesthetic level, into the bed of the American series Fargo by Noah Hawley, in which realism and the grotesque end up merging and amalgamating. From this point of view, the series, therefore, has the merit of embodying a profound evolution of the Italian television language, representing one of its first and most convincing excursions into the world of dramedy. A key role in the success of the series is played by its excellent cast, and above all by the two main performers: Luigi Lo Cascio (Nino Scotellaro), back from the excellent performance provided in Il Signore Delle Formiche by Gianni Amelio, and Claudia Pandolfi (Luvi Bray), seen in Drought by Paolo Virzì.
Thanks to their ability to identify themselves in completely new roles, Lo Cascio and Pandolfi manage to give life to two characters of great charisma right from the first episode, with whom it is impossible not to identify. Nino Scotellaro is a determined, brilliant and exuberant figure, who on a physiognomic level is somewhat reminiscent of Broadchurch’s David Tennant. His metamorphosis into the “cousin of America” Balduccio Remora is convincing and almost seems to give life to a completely new character, which slightly changes his character, movements and attitude: Nino Scotellaro was tormented by persistent rhinitis and used to indulge in histrionic attitudes, while Balduccio Remora is gray and anonymous, flies low and dispenses suggestions without ever attracting attention.
His true alter ego, however, is his wife, the talented Luvy Bray: a successful lawyer, she is a charismatic and memorable figure who, after the presumed death of her husband, experiences a phase of profound abandonment to then slowly begin her ascent. . An important mention also goes to the irreverent and wild Leonarda Scotellaro, younger sister of the protagonist, masterfully played by Selene Caramazza: lesbian, rough and cheeky, with a past as a punk and a drug addict, she is the liveliest and most likable character in the series. In short, the cast of The Bad Guy is truly iconic and offers a large number of pleasant surprises.
However, the most characteristic and memorable aspect of The Bad Guy lies above all in the direction and the technical sector. Leaving behind every standard of Italian cinema on the subject of the mafia and the underworld, the creative direction boldly turns towards a young, cheeky and “pop” language. The colors of the photography are bright and lively, the use of superimposed writing recalls the customs of American blockbusters, and the bizarre quotations inserted in the soundtrack are simply brilliant: the pilot opens on the notes of “Bandiera Bianca” by Battiato, continues with “Se telephoning” by Mina, he moves on to the hits Goodbye and I’m In Love, and even uses the trap of Achille Lauro.
There are also some sensational cameos, such as that of Enrico Mentana, and there is no lack of references to current affairs, with the fall of the bridge over the Strait of Messina – yes, in the alternative universe of the series the bridge over the Strait has finally become a reality! – which closely recalls the story of the Morandi bridge in Genoa. In short, the director’s revolution goes hand in hand with that of the narrative tone and helps to create a decidedly original and innovative product. Our only perplexity, on the technical side, is represented by a decidedly more subdued and less artistically inspired third episode than the first two. In all likelihood, however, it is only an episode of narrative adjustment, which pays more attention to substance than to form and then restarts in the best way with the second half of the series. Waiting to see what awaits us in the last three episodes, however, for our part, we can only warmly recommend the vision of this new, fascinating series.
The Bad Guy Review: The Last Words
With its lively and irreverent approach to the mafia theme, The Bad Guy marks a turning point and winks at Fargo, dramedy and the contemporary pop world to offer us a fresh and original product. Ironic, brilliant and bittersweet. The Bad Guy rewrites the rules of the crime story with brilliant writing and dynamic direction. A typically Italian TV series that never loses international appeal thanks to a protagonist who evokes the great anti-heroes made in the USA.
