This Italian series tells of the war against the Cosa Nostra in the 1990s; in particular the hunt for Leoluca Bagarella, a senior Mafioso and his associates and a child they are believed to have kidnapped. Saverio Barone, a young prosecutor recently recruited to the Anti-Mafia squad, is among those leading the hunt; a hunt he becomes obsessed with. He is partnered with Carlo Mazza, a more experienced prosecutor. Over the course of the first series we see events from the perspective of these prosecutors; Bagarella and his associates, most notably his driver Tony.
I really enjoyed the first season of this series and hope the second becomes available here soon. The tone is understandably fairly bleak... anybody hoping for the fun of Sicily based crime drama 'Inspector Montalbano' will be sorely disappointed! The series doesn't shy away from showing Mafia crimes; there are some fairly gruelling scenes of torture and murder and as hunt for the boy drags on for months and years with him chained up and his chance of survival not that great there is a sense of bleakness. The opening of each episode reminds us that this is based on real events, but with details changed for dramatic purposes; this helps keep the viewer on edge, especially if like me you don't know how the real story ends. The cast does a really impressive job bringing their characters to life... not 'larger than life'; the Mafiosi are shown as fairly ordinary people who happen to be violent criminals rather than obviously evil villains, which explains why they aren't easily caught. Overall I'd certainly recommend this.
These comments are based on watching the series in Italian with English subtitles.
