My Review Of "Gomorrah"

Gomorrah is an Italian crime film based on the factual criminal organization, he Camorra. Apparently the Camorra is a larger group and even more ruthless than the Sicilian Mafia. I really enjoyed Gomorrah because it is my style of foreign film, but also because I am an Italian America. Growing up I always heard about the Sicilian Mafia of course but it was very interesting to see a more factual representation of crime in Italy. One aspect I really enjoyed about Gomorrah is the way it reminded me of a 1970s crime-horror film. The film is very nihilistic the whole way through, especially the ending. It has a very dark and grimy feeling throughout, especially with the sets and locations. The film makers did a great job of capturing the dark side of Italy. Crime films in America are very much glamorized, and they make the mobsters look really cool to put it honestly. In many of the American crime films the mobsters are made out to be the heroes of the film, usually playing a dual role of a hero and a criminal. Another aspect of Gomorrah I really enjoyed was the way it followed multiple characters throughout the story, yet they were all very connected. You don’t see that in too many films but I feel it makes a great plot device. According to many of the others in our class, they felt extremely disconnected to the characters. Maybe they haven’t been exposed to struggle like this before, but for whatever reason I felt more connected to the characters in this film than many of the other films that we watched. Over all, I found that Gomorrah was a very interesting film, and although it was a very dark film I thoroughly enjoyed it. I understand how it could be really heavy for some people though. I highly recommend it to experimental, foreign, and crime film enthusiast.