Taking place in the slums of Naples, Gomorrah (2008) is a really gritty look at how the Camorra crime syndicate, the Mafia, effects people in many walks of life. While the mob has been glamorized in many ways, rich, tough men who hang out in strip clubs and big houses, this shows probably a truer picture of what the life is like. Yes they are tough brutal men...but they are ugly, not really so rich, and make life terrible for many.
Gomorrah follows several stories: two young men think they can make a name for themselves and take out the local mob, a tailor who creates designer knock-offs for the mob and decides he can get away with helping the new Chinese gang, a delivery man for the mob...all these tales intertwine to create a picture of thugs, of heartless thugs who have no loyalty and enforce a code that benefits only them. It is a grim picture of no future, and life that is cheap and disposable.
I thought Gomorrah was a nice counterpart to the Godfather films and the Sopranos. While all those are fantastic, I think they do not show the down and dirty side of things. The slums that are increased because of the crime syndicate, the hopeless despair placed on people already living on the edge, the poverty that makes children captive to caprice and not free to grow. This is the mob in its grimmer reality.
Yes they are tough men. But they are not wearing designer suits, they do not have beautiful homes. They are smelly, obese old men, losing a war that they started. Such is the world that Gomorrah recreates.
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