Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Elodie, Francesco Patanè, Michele Placido, Francesco Di Leva, Tommaso Ragno, Brenno Placido
Intro:
… derivative of far better gangster films, and so generic that it’s almost a deadpan parody. It’s watchable enough but not especially engaging.
Set in the Puglia region in the far south of Italy, this is in a sense a gangster Western, based on an investigative novel about a real-life vendetta. It’s in black and white, and the cinematography is stunning. Thematically, it’s very roughly a take on Romeo and Juliet, though the ‘star-crossed lovers’ idea is not laboured; they are Andrea (Francesco Patanè) and Marilena (singer Elodie in her first acting role).
The story begins very viscerally, with a shooting in which most of the Malatesta family – but not Andrea’s father – are wiped out by the Camporeales. Flash forward some decades, and Andrea Snr has long since ‘returned the favour’, so that an uneasy peace prevails. Andrea is now sleeping with Marilena, who’s the wife of fugitive Santo Camporeale … a Malatesta is murdered … and the blood feud is literally on again for young and old. Egged on by his bloodthirsty mother, Andrea changes in next to no time from a peaceable drip to a thug with a zeal for killing and for brutality in general. The implausibility of this rapid transformation is really jarring, and the seemingly interminable cycle of death becomes tedious.
Burning Hearts is a directorial debut, and (perhaps because of that) it’s visually showy and a triumph of style over substance – though, to be fair, that exquisite style is no small thing, and it will look great on the big screen. There are a couple of impressive set-pieces, notably a slow-motion sequence in which a herd of cattle (“the cows of war”) moves towards a funeral. But the whole thing is derivative of far better gangster films, and so generic that it’s almost a deadpan parody. It’s watchable enough but not especially engaging. On balance, it’s just OK.