Film Forum

3:10 ONLY

THE TRAITOR, directed by acclaimed Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio (FISTS IN THE POCKET), tells the true story of Tommaso Buscetta, the man who brought down the Cosa Nostra. In the early 1980’s, an all-out war rages between Sicilian mafia bosses over the heroin trade. Tommaso Buscetta, a made man, flees to hide out in Brazil. Back home, scores are being settled and Buscetta watches from afar as his sons and brother are killed in Palermo, knowing he may be next. Arrested and extradited to Italy by the Brazilian police, Buscetta makes a decision that will change everything for the Mafia: he decides to meet with Judge Giovanni Falcone and betray the eternal vow he made to the Cosa Nostra in the so-called “Maxi trial,” a chaotic spectacle in which hundreds of mafiosi are tried simultaneously in a fortified courtroom within a Palermo prison.

THE TRAITOR is Italy’s official submission to the 2020 Academy Awards® for Best International Film.

ITALY/GERMANY/FRANCE/BRAZIL   2019   150 MINS.  IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES    SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Reviews

“Critics’ Pick. Tremendous & meticulous. Anchored by a Favino’s shrewd, subtle and volcanic lead performance. Bellocchio’s approach to the story is at once coolly objective… and almost feverishly intense. He has a historian’s analytical detachment, a novelist’s compassion for his characters and a citizen’s outrage at the cruelty and corruption that have festered in his country for so long. The Maxi Trial of 1986 (is) a chaotic spectacle that suggests an episode of ‘Law & Order’ directed by Federico Fellini… the proceedings spinning toward farce… THE TRAITOR takes in the comedy and the squalor of Italy’s recent past. It’s a wise, sad, guardedly hopeful account… A vivid, complicated portrait that is also a political parable… THE TRAITOR has the glow of truth.”
– A. O. Scott, The New York Times

“Favino delivers a career-best, Burt-Lancaster-esque performance. Bellocchio’s tragicomedy is one of the first unmissable movies of the year since it’s both bigger and more intimate than it seems… It’s a nightmare; it’s a gas.”
– Simon Abrams, RogerEbert.com

“Show-stopping. A big, true-crime gangster movie. Directed with confidence and force – big, bold, confident filmmaking.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK)

“Clearly made by a master filmmaker questioning the nature of repentance. (Stars) as Buscetta popular actor Pierfrancesco Favino, never better… The Maxi Trials began in 1986, re-created in all their surreal pandemonium with unruly defendants and even a bewailing chorus of Mafia wives interrupting proceedings. Buscetta (is) a compelling figure, played in all his multi-registered inscrutability by Favino, who captures the swagger as well as the vulnerability. DP Vladan Radovic captures the master’s vision from sweeping vistas of Rio to powerful, punchy scenes of Mafia assassinations. Bellocchio’s usual superb use of music is once again a source of pleasure.”
– Jay Weissberg, Variety