Sicilian Letters

Loosely based on the real-life 30-year-long manhunt for infamous Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza‘s Sicilian Letters sees former politician and mafia associate Castello (Toni Servillo) recruited by the authorities after being released from prison to aid in their attempts to capture mob boss Matteo (Elio Germano). Their plan is to lure Matteo out by having Castello write him letters to gain his trust, beginning a cat-and-mouse game between the pair. Unfortunately, this crime thriller about mafia subterfuge can’t make the premise of exchanging letters as exciting as it wants to.

The film opens with a young Matteo and his siblings being challenged by their domineering father to kill a lamb. After his older brother and his sister refuse, Matteo takes the knife and carries out the deed. His actions lead him to be chosen as heir to the crime family. A cut to the adult Matteo watching his father die with the same cold expression works as a memorable introduction to the antagonist. Catello, too, is likewise established as an intriguing character as he arrives home to discover his wife has fallen on financial hardship while his daughter has fallen pregnant. Both actors give commendable performances, however, they’re not given anything interesting to do aside from read and write letters respectively.

What begins as an inciting set-up soon becomes a tedious affair with very little action or plot taking place during the over-two-hour runtime. While there are fleeting moments of suitably blunt violence to illustrate the severity of Castello’s situation, the momentum soon dissipates, and the pacing returns to a listless march. Even as the sting operation reaches its climax, the film struggles to wring any excitement out of the action.

This is a very dialogue-heavy film in which scenes are carried by compellingly performed monologues, with one of the best seeing the police captain (Fausto Russi Alessi) aggressively dressing down one of his inspectors (Daniela Marra). Despite all the eloquently written correspondence, the script is unsure about what it’s trying to say. There’s a lot of discussion about the role of father figures, for example, though there’s never any clear thematic motivation behind the dialogue.

Sicilian Letters may be based on a fascinating real-life tale, but there’s unfortunately not that much interesting going on in this fictionalised version of those events.

Andrew Murray

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