Movie Review: The Traitor

The Traitor *** / *****

Directed by: Marco Bellocchio.

Written by: Marco Bellocchio & Valia Santella & Ludovica Rampoldi & Francesco Piccolo and Francesco La Licata.

Starring: Pierfrancesco Favino (Tommaso Buscetta), Luigi Lo Cascio (Totuccio Contorno), Fausto Russo Alesi (Giovanni Falcone), Maria Fernanda Cândido (Maria Cristina de Almeida Guimarães), Fabrizio Ferracane (Pippo Calò), Nicola Calì (Totò Riina), Giovanni Calcagno (Tano Badalamenti), Bruno Cariello (Alfonso Giordano), Bebo Storti (Franco Coppi), Vincenzo Pirrotta (Luciano Liggio), Goffredo Maria Bruno (Stefano Bontate),Gabriele Cicirello (Benedetto Buscetta), Paride Cicirello (Antonio Buscetta), Elia Schilton (Giornalista TV), Alessio Praticò (Scarpuzzedda), Pier Giorgio Bellocchio (Cesare), Rosario Palazzolo (Giovanni De Gennaro), Antonio Orlando (Michele), Ada Nisticò (Alessandra Buscetta), Federica Butera (Silvana Buscetta), Giovanni Crozza Signoris (Tommaso Buscetta giovane), Alberto Gottuso (Giuseppe Inzerillo), Tatu La Vecchia (Fra Giacinto), Sergio Pierattini (Giudice Alfonso Giordano), Raffaella Lebboroni (Giudice donna), Giuseppe Di Marca (Giulio Andreotti). 

 

The Traitor is basically the final 15 minutes of GoodFellas stretched out to two-and-a-half hours. Marco Bellocchio’s film focuses on Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino), the Cosa Nostra’s most legendary rat. He tried to leave that life behind for a peaceful one in Rio, but when the Mafia war in Italy breaks out, killing hundreds, including many members of his own family, he ends up instead spending essentially the last 20 years of his life – from 1980-2000 – in Witness Protection in America, unless he was flown back to Italy to testify against his former co-workers, always incased in bullet proof glass in the courtroom. These men, of course, see him as the lowest of the low – they all may be murderers, drug smugglers and all-around horrible men – but at least they aren’t rats.

 

Bellocchio is, of course, a legendary Italian filmmaker – his remarkable debut film, Fists in the Pocket, came out 55 years ago, and he’s been working steadily ever since. This film is surprisingly linear for Bellocchio – and more disappointingly, really lacks any real perspective on Buscetta himself. Bellocchio is basically content to follow along his path to being a rat – and the film stacks one courtroom scene on top of another. The courtroom scenes are always interesting and entertaining – partly because Favino is such a great actor and able to hold attention on himself, and partly just because they are naturally dramatic anyway. At a certain point though, they are very much the same thing after another – and all the names and faces of the people he is ratting on start to bleed together.

 

There is one fantastic sequence in the film – and it stands out because he’s so unlike everything else in the film. That is when the mafia takes a hit out on the lead prosecutor that Buscetta has been working with for more than a decade – by planting a bomb under his car, which explodes while he is driving. The whole thing is shot from inside the car as it explodes, and tumbles over. It is a remarkable sequence. Also wonderful is a detail embedded in the first part of the movie, and the returned to at the end. Buscetta tells the story of the first man he was ever assigned to kill. He waits for him outside his son’s baptism, and when he locks eyes with Buscetta, and knows what is coming, grabs his baby boy for protection – and from then on, wouldn’t go anywhere without him – essentially using his child as a human shield – knowing even the Mafia has its limits.

 

Its that kind of detail that is missing from the rest of the movie, that could have elevated the whole thing. This is a mob movie that pointedly doesn’t want to even show the entertaining side. Scorsese’s GoodFellas entertains you for more than two-hours before lowering the boom on you, and it becomes crystal clear, if it hadn’t already, what kind of people you have been watching. There isn’t a touch of that romanticism here. That is admirable in one sense – but sure doesn’t help The Traitor’s entertainment value.