Movie Review by EDF
Starring: Luigi Lo Cascio, Lucia Jimenez, Jose angel Egido, Simón Andreu
Director: Eros Puglielli
Police detective Giacomo Amaldi (Luigi Lo Cascio) takes on a case where someone seems to be stalking Giuditta Luzzatto (Lucia Jimenez), a student studying anthropology. Giacomo keeps an eye on the student and the harassment seems to stop. One of Giacomo’s co-workers, Augusto Ajaccio (Simon Andreu), is diagnosed with a brain tumour and the doctors predict that as his condition gets worse, he will start hallucinating and will mentally breakdown. In the meantime, three people are found dead at the outskirts of the city. All three were shot several times by a man who seems to know a thing or two about taxidermy.
One of the nurses, Eleonora Cerusico looks in on Ajaccio and finds that someone has written his name on Ajaccio’s chest and somehow he was unaware of this happening. The body of Viviana Justic, a woman who sells antique dolls is found with her arms replaced with those of a Victorian sex doll. Cerusico is then found dead with her legs cut off and replaced with the limbs from the doll. Meanwhile, Ajaccio keeps having flashbacks to his time at an orphanage and an incident with a doll that involved another boy. How are all of these incidents connected and can Amaldi keep protecting Luzzatto as this case drags him in deeper?
This is a purely a cop drama in the same vain as SEVEN but not as dark. The production values are such that you would have mistaken it to have been set in America, which clearly was the intention of this Italian movie. Luigi Lo Cascio plays Amaldi to perfection with an undercurrent level of violence ready to pounce out and his back-story explains why. You are kept guessing at who the killer might be and when it is finally revealed, it seems to take a similar route taken by other serial killer movies. This is only a small complaint out of what is an enjoyable, suspenseful movie.
