The Catholic School

At first, there was nothing much to it. It was all about just boys experiencing sex for the first time. And then it became very sinister. I wish they had things explained a little bit more clearly because I could not really understand what was going on at the beginning. However towards the end, it became pretty clear. Acting was great and the cinematography was excellent. But I still feel like they could have made storyline more simpler, so it wouldn't confuse the audience. Specially going back and forth in time, was unnecessary because it did pretty much nothing to make the movie more interesting other than confusing. I guess that's why most people felt like they were watching some random Clips. This movie had potential to be excellent unfortunately it failed to deliver. 6 out of 10 for me!

La scuola cattolica is a bad film that mistreats a story that should have been handled with more care, or rather, that exploits it to gain more visibility. The film has nothing to say and, in an attempt to hide it, it crumples over an empty and confusing structure accompanied by a narrator's voice blurting out what appear to be introspective profundities. As an Italian, I already knew this case, and hoped it would be treated with more justice, as an attempt to really understand why what happened happened, and to give a voice to the victims of the case. Instead, it is not clear what the director wants to do, other than displaying a gratuitous attempt to shock, some vague form of social polemic, and pointless observations on religion.

I grew up in a catholic school so i can relate to this however its a step above in all honesty. At no time during my time in Catholic school in NYC did I feel above the law or the feelings of human decency, in that aspect the few portrayed here obviously had major personality / mental issues with how they seen other human beings, especially young woman. My wife took offense to this movie, the arrogance & lack of human decency among the teenage boys was very over the top for her.

I do not feel on the whole, Catholicism is the subject here but a few bad eggs with no regard for others, the total lack of empathy made it clear it was more than a religious situation, but poor upbringing & moral quality.

The title is flawed as religion had nothing to do with the horrible criminal behavior.

I would of rated it better but the religion is not the issue and it should not be in the title.

I wasn't aware that this was a retelling of an actual rape murder in Italy and so I felt there was a lack of context for much of what happens, which sort of colors my review.

The first two thirds of the film follow a group of Catholic school boys -most of whom look to be in their mid twenties with receding hairlines- and their families, observing their caricaturized machismo behavior and sexual frustration through a bleak lens, portraying all of them as shady, violent deviants in the making. The director seems to be making the argument that all the boys are capable of the crime by showing us glimpses of their toxic bro culture and unsavory views on women, but it's done in such a broad way that we never really engage with any character in particular. One boy narrates the film, but there is no real protagonist and nobody to root for, bar the two female victims who appear in the final 30 mins.

Many of the plot points feel random and irrelevant to the over-arching narrative. For example, a lot of time is spent setting up one of the boys as being gay, but this never leads to anything. In another scene there is a traumatic accident involving the narrator's younger sister, but it just comes and goes without a sense of why this event is significant, or what imprint it has left on the characters.

The final third is a drawn out re-enactment of how three of the boys lure two young women to a house, imprison, rape and murder one of them. It's disturbing and believably acted, but my lack of context led me to feel like it came out of nowhere. The ending left me with a hollow feeling and while I appreciate it brought the victim's true story to my attention, the film didn't convince me of any of the sub textual points it was making about religion or masculinity. It was overall very scattered and confused.

The film seems to be a little bit boring in some parts, decent acting from some, bad from others. The real story of the murder hasn't been explicated well, a lot of missing parts that the plot needed hasn't been added to the work. However the picture and the good aesthetic of the 70's save this film from a worst vote.