Gomorrah (film)

Naples, Summer 2004. Some gangsters are relaxing in a tanning salon. An assassination occurs between clans of the Di Lauro Camorra syndicate which rule Scampia-Secondigliano, and triggers the so-called Faida di Scampia (Scampia feud) (in real life the war started on October 28 2004 and ended on September 16 2005 with the arrest of Paolo Di Lauro) which forms the backstory of the entire movie. The Faida erupts between members of the Di Lauro syndicate and the so-called scissionisti (secessionists), who are led by Raffaele Amato, brother of two of the men killed in the opening scene.

The film intertwines five separate stories of people whose lives are touched by organized crime.

Don Ciro
Don Ciro is a timid middleman who distributes money to the families of imprisoned Di Lauro clan members. After the feud develops within the clan, he is ambushed by a pair of angry secessionists during a delivery. Fearing for his life, he later offers to defect to their side. They refuse his offer, and tell Ciro that he has to "pay" for his life by selling some of his former associates. He leads them to the location where he is given the money for distribution. The pair raid the place, killing everyone but Ciro, and take most of the money, leaving some cash on the table for Ciro. Ciro, still somewhat blood-spattered, walks off past several bodies to an uncertain future.

Totò
Totò is a 13-year-old grocery delivery boy who witnesses some drug dealers abandon a bag of drugs and a gun while evading the police at Sette palazzi in Scampia. He returns the items to the gang, and asks to join. His initiation in a cavern consists of him being shot while wearing a bulletproof vest as a test of courage. As the feud intensifies, families in the neighborhood whose loyalties are suspect are ordered to move out or suffer violence; Totò's fellow gang members receive similar threats. Later, while hanging out with his gang in the streets of Scampia, one of his gang is killed in a drive-by. The gang members decide to stand their ground and exact violent retribution by selecting a woman, Maria, as their next victim, as her son has joined a clan of Secondigliano secessionists. Totò, who has delivered groceries to Maria, is forced to lure her out of her apartment, where his comrades execute her.

Roberto
Roberto is a graduate who works in waste management. His boss, Franco provides a low-cost toxic waste disposal service that allows northern industrialists to dispose of materials like chromium and asbestos in the countryside of southern Italy. Franco and Roberto orchestrate the illegal disposal of the waste at abandoned quarries and other environmentally-sensitive sites. During one such operation, a drum of toxic chemicals is accidentally spilled on a driver. Franco refuses to call an ambulance, and hires children to drive the trucks when the workers refuse to continue their work. Later, Franco and Roberto meet a family of farmers who, desperate to extinguish their debts, decide to allow the burial of chemical substances in their countryside. An elderly farmer gifts Roberto a basket of peaches, but Franco later tells him to throw them away because they are contaminated. Roberto then decides to quit his job and tells Franco he cannot bring himself to poison the earth, to which Franco says that he shouldn't think he is the better man, because thanks to men like them Italy was able to join the European Union by solving problems others had caused, and allowed people to repay their debts. Roberto walks alone on a desolate countryside road.

Pasquale
Pasquale is an haute couture tailor who works for Iavarone, a garment factory owner with ties to the Camorra. Pasquale takes a night-job training Chinese garment workers. As they are competing with Camorra-controlled firms, the Chinese drive him to and from work in the trunk of their car. His secret work is discovered nonetheless, and his Chinese associates are killed in a drive-by. He survives the attack, but resigns his job. Later, working as a truck driver, he is in a transport café where he spots Scarlett Johansson on TV wearing one of his dresses. He smiles wryly as he drives away.

Marco and Ciro aka Sweet Pea
Marco and Ciro are two young wannabe-gangsters who try to operate their own small racket independently of the local clan. Impressed by mafia portrayals from Hollywood movies, they quote lines and spontaneously reenact scenes from Scarface in Walter Schiavone's villa while dropping references to Tony Montana, Miami, and Colombian drug cartels. Their first score is robbing African immigrants during a drug purchase at the Hotel Boomerang, Castel Volturno. The word of the incident gets to the local mob chieftain, who summons them and warns them under threat of violence not to repeat such behavior in the future. Ignoring him completely, they spy Camorra gangsters hiding a stash of weapons. They steal the weapons and amuse themselves by firing off rounds by the banks of a Regi Lagni canal estuary in the marshland. Once they run out of money, they use their guns to rob a video arcade, and spend their stolen funds at a strip club. The gangsters, angered, find them and threaten to kill them if they don't return the weapons within a day. The pair prove stubborn. Zio Vittorio, one of the local gangsters, approaches them in a bar with an offer to come work for him. He offers them €10,000 if they return the weapons and murder Peppe 'O Cavallaro, in fact uncle Bernardino. They accept the contract, which turns out to be a trap, as they are ambushed and killed by Giovanni, Bernardino, Vittorio and others at the location of their supposed target, an abandoned beach resort next to Regi Lagni canal estuary. The last scene shows their dead bodies being carried away by a front end loader.

Source:[3]

The film, following the book upon which it is based, portrays events identifiably similar to actual historical ones; for example, the Scampia feud. In the film's credits, the filmmakers thank the districts of Scampia and Torre del Greco, as well as the Carabinieri of nearby Boscoreale: these three suburban areas around the Bay of Naples feature cityscapes appropriate for filming this story.

The scene at the truck stop where Pasquale sees Scarlett Johansson on TV wearing one of the tailor's dresses is based on a portion of the book where Angelina Jolie wore a counterfeit dress to the Oscars. Garrone could not obtain that footage from the Academy and was forced to buy footage of Johansson at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 – even though press reports indicate hers was a vintage gown.[20]

Oreste Spagnuolo, member of the Casalesi clan and main perpetrator of the Castel Volturno massacre, has alleged that Garrone paid a pizzo of 20,000 euros in order to proceed with the film. He also insinuates that Terracciano was cast as a part of this deal.[21][22]

1. "Ma si vene stasera" – Alessio
2. "La Nostra Storia" – Raffaello
3. "Brava gente" – Nino D'Angelo
4. "Must Pray" – Pieter Vercampt
5. "Macchina 50" – Rosario Miraggio
6. "Ragione e sentimento" – Maria Nazionale
7. "Un giornio d'Amore" – Daniele Stefani
8. "Sadeness (Part 1)" – Enigma
9. "Esageratamente" – Anthony
10. "O' schiavo e o' re" – Nino D'Angelo
11. "Xiao Cheng Gu Shi" – Teresa Teng
12. "Viento 'e mare (feat. Maria Nazionale)" – Matthew Herbert
13. "L'amica di mia moglie" – Tommy Riccio
14. "Finchè 'o sole me vo'" – Maria Nazionale
15. "Herculaneum" – Robert Del Naja

• Official website (in Italian)
• Gomorrah at IMDb
• Gomorrah at Rotten Tomatoes
• Gomorrah at Box Office Mojo
• Gomorrah at AllMovie
• Gomorrah: Terminal Beach an essay by Chuck Stephens at the Criterion Collection