Boys Cry [La terra dell’abbastanza] **** (2018, Andrea Carpenzano, Matteo Olivetti, Milena Mancini, Max Tortora) – Classic Movie Review 12,495

Matteo Olivetti stars as Mirko, a dangerously impulsive Rome suburban boy involved with small-time gangsters, in the acclaimed first feature film of the D’Innocenzo brothers, the 2018 Italian crime thriller Boys Cry [La terra dell’abbastanza].

Matteo Olivetti and Andrea Carpenzano star as Mirko and Manolo are best school friends and live in the poor suburbs of Rome with their single parents (Milena Mancini as Mirko’s mother Alessia, Max Tortora as Manolo’s father Danilo).

The boys accidentally run over and kill a man in the dark while driving in a hit-and-run accident one night, and get involved with a local criminal family as hitmen and pimps after Manolo’s father (Max Tortora) finds out that the man was a snitch in hiding from the crime family. The boys claim the killing as their ticket into the family. But what’s supposed to be the path to a better life is the road to hell.

Writer/ directors Damiano D’Innocenzo and Fabio D’Innocenzo’s Italian crime drama is extremely well done, though relentlessly dark, downbeat and depressing. There’s not a laugh or a ray of hope in sight, and hardly a decent character. But, nevertheless, it pulls you over to be involved in their fates.

The performances are excellent and persuasive, the 0riginal screenplay is tremendous and realistic, and the direction is exciting and nicely neo noirish. Paolo Carnera’s cinematography is very striking and imaginative. There’s a good score and soundtrack, too, all very moody. It is an outstanding, special movie, with an incisive, surgical cleanliness for its cutting edge.

La terra dell’abbastanza translates as The Land of Enough, but the Boys Cry is hardly an improvement.

Matteo Olivetti was born in 1990 in Chatham, Kent, UK, and is bilingual in Italian and English.

The cast are Matteo Olivetti as Mirko, Andrea Carpenzano as Manolo, Milena Mancini as Mirko’s mother Alessia, Max Tortora as Manolo’s father Danilo, Michela De Rossi as Mirko’s girlfriend Ambra, and Luca Zingaretti as Angelo.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,495

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