Gomorra 2008

Ben Lyons, At the Movies: This is gritty, it's raw, it's incredibly realistic and it's terrifying and stylized. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Gomorra has its own nerve, as well as the filmmaking intelligence to strip the cliches from its densely packed, authentically inhabited narrative. The new moviegoing year just got one hell of a jolt. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Gomorrah is a corrosive and ferociously unsentimental fictional look at Italian organized crime. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Next to HBO's The Wire, which depicted an enormous financial ladder and also brought to life the characters on every rung, the movie is small potatoes: excellent journalism, so-so art. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Given the breadth of the story, the characters never achieve much depth, but they're part of a larger pattern: the younger ones are eager to find their way into the organization while the older ones are desperate to find their way out. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The malignity can be oppressive -- this is a far cry from Fellini finding poignant uplift in the slums -- but the dramatic structure is complex, the details are instructive, and the sense of tragedy is momentous. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: If The Godfather is the operatic pinnacle of gangster movies, let Gomorrah be its biblical counterpart. Read more

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: The sense of authenticity in this movie is palpable, but the scenes are sometimes so dark and so impenetrable that it takes a herculean effort to keep up with who's who and what's going on. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Over the course of this sprawling mosaic about the world's most fearsome Mafia organization, the Neapolitan Camorra, [director] Garrone makes the business look like a beast of many tentacles, spreading misery and death to everyone it touches. Read more

Boston Globe: Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: The fingerprints of the Camorra are everywhere, this film wants us to know, and its grip is lethal. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: There's nothing extraneous about it, nothing excessive in its violence or its art. It's as desolate as it needs to be and no more. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: [Director] Garrone's messy storytelling compounds an already messy history. He's a powerful filmmaker, though, and a fearless one. He knows where the bodies are buried -- and he shows them to us. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: The film's multiple strands might reflect a trend in multiple story lines. And it works to persuasively argue just how pervasive the corruption is in this community. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Hell seems terribly familiar in Gomorrah, an Italian gangster film with a near-documentary feel. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Don't look for resolution, romanticism, or comic relief in this underworld tour, shot 
 with a fast, you-are-there look and no pity; you won't find picaresque goodfellas or Sopranos-style ziti eaters here. Instead, there's the power of damning truth Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: It upends everything you think you know about the mob and mob movies. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: As even-toned as a documentary, it plays like the Short Cuts of Sicily; we're not sure who we're watching or why, but by the bloody end we're caught in a web of violent fools Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Visceral but disciplined and beautifully acted. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Stark, raw and brutal, this isn't Hollywood's romantic version of the Mafia. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The result demands a patient viewing, and maybe more than one; only after a second dose did I get the measure of [director] Garrone's mastery, and realize how far he has surpassed, not merely honored, the author's courageous toil. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Darkly compelling. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Gomorrah takes the time-honored Mafia genre and gives it an all- new twist. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: A very localized canvas of the 'criminal empire' with five interwoven strands of the narrative, each one leading to the same fatalistic ending, attesting to the ultimate invincibility and inevitability of this 'empire.' Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's ugly. It's powerful. But it's hard to look away. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film is a curative for the romanticism of The Godfather and Scarface. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: An operatic film about organized crime, an ambitious work of social, physical and spiritual geography. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: What the director has created is a ferocious portrait of total corruption. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Gomorrah is stark and powerful filmmaking, a welcome alternative to romanticized American mob melodramas. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: An unforgettable portrayal of the unglamorous gangster life, which is often short and never sweet. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Garrone's gloomy assessment of the new world order is painfully on target: corruption comes in many guises, and it's as impossible to stop as it is to track. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Every story strand informs the others, creating a devastating 360-degree view of how organized crime impacts the country's everyday people. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: Read more

Jay Weissberg, Variety: Utilizing a mesmerizing documentary style that studiously avoids glamorizing the horrors, Garrone cherrypicks episodes from Saviano's muckraking tract, building to a chillingly matter-of-fact crescendo of violence. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Detailing daily life inside a criminal state, it's a new sort of gangster film for America to ponder. Read more

Jan Stuart, Washington Post: Gomorrah manages to be artful without being arty. Read more