Non sono un assassino

I watched this on Rai last night, after reading the few user reviews on IMDb at that time.

For starters: The comments had made me expect something less. I found the film kind of more interesting than existing reviews suggested. However, nothing written about it seemed wrong.

The features of this movie are interestingly double edged. It suffers from lack of continuity as the conventional / linear kind of storytelling has been shattered way too much. However, the discontinuity was stylish enough to bear with the mood swings in expectation of something notable and fulfilling.

An early action scene (which, of course, was a flashback like most other scenes) surprised me as it looked like the adaptation of some pages from Diabolik or Satanik (Italian comics with criminal lead characters) as our cop jumped from rooftops in a snow mask chasing a guy. (I guess they used yamakasi stuntmen for that.) It was an early signal to how graphically dynamic and experimental this was to become despite the story which did not really require much physical or visual playtime.

I got excited as Beatrice addressed the main problems with our lead character by using some strong-but-legit words. For the real-time scenes weighed lighter than the flashbacks overall, even such interesting moments were losing their impact. It felt like I was watching a very long music video that relied on jumpcuts.

There were way too many locations and characters for what seemed to be the basic story. That approach should have been disturbing, and it kind of was, but only to an extent. There was something almost childishly sincere about this overconfidence on the part of the filmmakers, something that made me say "go on, keep telling..."

I found myself being entertained, though not in the way I was expecting. The power points of the movie were shaping up separately, like in stuff totally irrelevant to what would really matter.

For example, Claudia Gerini was at the top of her game as she acted the part of the prosecutor who was kind of sick all the time, something common with overworking career women, courtroom monologues cut by sniffles and coughs etc. That strangely functioned to provide depth to her character, but her character did not really matter with respect to what the movie was really about.

As some other commentators have underlined, one undeniably major problem with the film was how the younger versions of the three characters failed to resemble them. And I noted something extra weird: How come the judge (Alessio Boni) had aged so much more? I mean, their younger versions were at the same age range, but Boni was made to look at least 10 years older than the other two in the few real-time scenes. Was that a signal to how being a responsible and decent judge would affect one's biology in contrast to being a corrupt cop or a failure of a lawyer? Really? Was that worth messing with Boni's normal looks which would make him more compatible with his friends?

As for the conclusion: That would have been impressive had we not seen Usual Suspects or Primal Fear.

With such well-known and much imitated films on its back, "Non sono un assassino" fails to be shocking or groundbreaking.

Still, interesting and entertaining enough. Especially if you go the extra mile to find meaning in details, like, if you consider those scenes with the bug as Kafka references.

As it was ending, I decided to give it a 6. But then came the very final scebe. The one in which the loser/lawyer/poet opened his door to whom we would expect the least. Having that particular thing as the final note of the whole experience softened and changed the overall mood of film so unexpectedly and so much that, I decided to award it with an extra point.

That, and that alone, is why I am giving this a 7.

P. S. "Arrivederci amore ciao" by Michele Soavi remains the most striking Italian crime fiction. Even remembering it gives me the chills. Check out that underrated gem.