THE TRAITOR (2020) FILM REVIEW

***

15, 153 Mins

As long and lavish as ‘The Godfather’, but not nearly as subversive.

I do love a good gangster saga and Marco Bellocchio’s film most certainly is that. ‘The Traitor’ (2020) is a two and a half hour tale of a mobster’s unravelling that’s as long and lavish as ‘The Godfather’ (1972), but not nearly as subversive.

The film begins at the height of an all-out war between Sicilian mafia bosses over the heroin trade of the early 1980s. Real-life mobster Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino) has fled Palermo for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Back home, his sons and brothers are being killed in action. Meanwhile Buscetta is extradited back to Italy by the Brazilian police. Here he becomes “pentito” - the Italian word for a member of a criminal organization who has collaborated with a public prosecutor. 

Buscetta does this by meeting with Judge Giovanni Falcone (Fausto Russo Alesi). Thus betraying the generation-standing vow he made to the Cosa Nostra...
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‘The Traitor’ is a violent movie in the manner of Brian De Palma’s blood-splattered ‘Scarface’ (1983). There’s a raunchy sex scene - with bare boobs and buttocks - that’s interrupted by a police raid. And a man’s arm is slashed off by a machete.

Director Bellocchio clearly understands that a Mafioso is a profession of violence. And yet still finds beauty in it. For example, a shootout amidst a hall of mirrors is a particular cinematographic treat. Later, expert special effects are called for during a car crash on a rollercoaster road. As glass shatters, there is physicality, heft and most importantly pain.

The costumes and sets are immaculate. Especially in the opening party scene which just explodes with tuxes, white robes and maxi dresses. ‘The Traitor’ unfolds over three decades and Bellocchio’s succulent costume design reflects the changing fashions and attitudes of the eras. In scene 1 set in 80s Palermo, Buscetta looks dapper in a white suit and black shirt. Moving the setting to Fort Collins, Colorado, he is considerably more sombre in a tweed jacket, thick jumper and comfy scarf.

Bellocchio also exercises a stunning eye for location and scenery. A scene where Buscetta has a smoke by his balcony overlooks Rio’s romanticized skyline, for instance. Elsewhere, a helicopter’s landing in Palermo moistly photographes the sapphire colour schemes of the Tyrrhenian.

‘The Traitor’ isn’t a youthful kind of gangster film. There’s no utterance of the line “as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” from ‘Goodfellas’ (1990). This is not a story of a kingpin’s rise and fall from grace. More a mournful, late-life reflection on the highs and lows of gangsterdom. Very similar to ‘The Godfather: Part III’ (1990) or, more recently, ‘The Irishman’ (2019).

But I can’t help, but wonder whether we’ve seen this done before and frankly done better. The film tips its hat to surrealism in a bizarre fantasy sequence where Buscetta is nailed into a coffin by his family. This is supposed to symbolize Buscetta’s declining mental state. And the concept of a mobster with mental health issues is similar to ‘The Sopranos’ (1999-2007).

The problem is Pierfransesco Favino is no James Gandolfini. He didn’t intimidate me every time he entered the way Tony Soprano did with his hulking 6ft1 height and pot belly. 
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What Bellocchio has here is style. This film is really good at filming the glamour and the pizzazz that comes with the Mafia lifestyle. What it leaves behind is the subversion and the commentary. ‘The Traitor’ has very little to say about the lives lost to a life of crime…

‘The Traitor’ is in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema now.