PROPERTY IS NO LONGER A THEFT: Elio Petri's 1973 dark comic gem makes its Blu-ray debut

The latest gift from Arrow Academy, this lesser-known (here in the USA) movie by Italian filmmaker Elio Petri -- a philosophical, political black comedy called PROPERTY IS NO LONGER A THEFT -- should quickly take its place as one of this noted filmmaker's better works, as well as one of his most unique. Made after his more popular movies, The 10th Victim and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, this one, so far as I know, was never released theatrically in the U.S.A, so its debut on home video is newsworthy and certainly a "must" for Petri buffs.

The movie tells the tale of a young bank clerk/accountant, oddly named Total (played by Flavio Bucci, shown below, in his first starring role), who has had a typically Italian upbringing -- the kind of hypocritical, patronizing parenting that, among other things, seems to have turned so many Italians, as the noted filmmaker Daniele Luchetti once explained to me, into anarchists. That was back in 2008, but clearly Signore Petri (shown at left) understood as much as early as 1973 when this original and prescient movie was released.

Total, who is literally allergic to money, addresses the audience at the beginning of the film by telling us, "Egoism is the fundamental sentiment of the religion of property. This situation is becoming intolerable, and I know many of you feel the same way." We then shift into a scene in the bank where Total works and see the bank's most successful client (a butcher played by co-star Ugo Tognazzi, below, left) make a huge deposit that suddenly turns into a robbery.

The manner in which the bank and the authorities handle this robbery, coupled to Total's own politics and philosophy and that of the butcher, who is a nasty, greedy piece of work whose own philosophy closely mirrors that of Donald Trump's -- this movie's Blu-ray/DVD debut could hardly be more timely -- leads to our Total's deciding to target the butcher and exact a very weird kind of revenge.

The remainder of this long (126 minutes) but succulent and bleakly entertaining movie offers up that revenge in a manner that is so encompassing and rich, as well as ever cognizant of the hypocrisy and denial built into humanity, that it eventually coils in on itself and crushes its own protagonist. But the journey is both bizarre and bubbly enough to carry us along quite easily. (The tour offered by the "protection service," above, is one of the highlights of the movie -- so redolent of wealth, power and our current "corporate" times as to take your breath away.)

The third important character here is Anita, the mistress of the butcher, played with a nice combination of fear, dread and utter understanding of a woman's place in this society by Daria Nicolodi (shown above and below, who was Dario Argento's oft-used leading lady). Petri, who co-wrote the film with Ugo Piro, allows each of his main characters to "explain" themselves during the course of the film, and Anita's explanation is a stunner, showing how very well she understands both herself and her situation. It's feminist and smart in so many ways, and yet Anita, of course, though she may understand things, still cannot control them.

Subsidiary characters include a shady police inspector, "drunk on power" (Orazio Orlando, above, left); a performer who doubles as a thief (the great Mario Scaccia); Total's whatever-works-for-me father (played by Salvo Randone, below, left); and a few others -- all of whom Petri uses to make his points about the society we lived in back then and that has only become more so down the decades since. By the finale you'll fully understand just how black a black comedy this one is -- as it makes nasty fun of everything from Marxism (our hero's family practices what he calls Mandrakian Marxism, as in Mandrake the Magician) to Capitalism, thievery, acting, and the very core of Italians and their society.

If the second hour's energy begins to flag a bit, hang on. There's a second wind coming.  Hang on also to watch the disc's special features, which include My Name is Total, a wonderful and nearly-present-day interview with star, Flavio Bucci, who rambles a lot but also fascinates and has plenty of interesting stuff to tell us. There are also a fine interview with producer Claudio Mancini, titled The Middle-Class Communist, and an interview with make-up artist Pierantonio Mecacci, The Best Man.

The Blu-ray transfer is first-rate, as well. I doubt this movie looked any better when it was projected on Italian screens back in the 1970s. From Arrow Films and distributed here in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, the disc hit the streets this past Tuesday, March 28, and is available for purchase. I would hope that one could rent it somewhere, but so far, Netflix does not even make it available to be saved to your queue.

John Slattery's directorial debut, GOD'S POCKET, is strange, wise, dark, crazy, funny and original

How often, when watching a movie in which the bad guys are about to wreak havoc on the good ones and this seems unavoidable, have you found yourself wishing against all hope that the good guys could do something, anything, please!? After the fact, when that damage has been done (this is usually a set-up for revenge -- sometimes it's the set-up for the entire movie that follows), things go on, as usual. But how often, following that first moment of threat, does somthing good and just and necessary actually occur? Right: You can count 'em on the fingers of one finger. Well, prepare yourself, folk, because this kind of jolting joy happens not once but twice in GOD'S POCKET, the new and quite unusual movie directed by and co-adapted (with Alex Metcalf, from the Pete Dexter novel) by John Slattery. And it happens in a manner that, though surprising, you can actually believe.

If this were all that Mr. Slattery's film offered (the director is pictured at left), I would still be inclined to give it a pass. But there's so much more in this exceedingly dark, moody, bleak, black-comedic movie that it earns mostly high marks all-round. Evidently based on a terrible and life-changing event in the life of Mr. Dexter that ended one man's career and started another's new one, the movie is by turns resolutely grim and bleakly funny. It involves a death that happens to one of the most agravating and unpleasant characters you're likely to have encountered on-screen of late, and as which Caleb Landry Jones is memorable indeed.

What evolves from this death is by turns wacky and awful, unreasonable and understandable -- given us human's beings propensity for self-delusion. It also turns the movie into a joy/horror-ride of major proportions. As you might expect from a smart Hollywood semi-insider like Slattery (whose indelible mark has been made on our consciousnesses via his work in Mad Men, the consistently finest piece of dramatic American television yet to air), he and his casting director, Susan Shopmaker, have done a yeoman job of collecting and then bringing to fruition a fabulous cast of some of independent film's finest actors.

In the lead is a man we'll be missing mightily until those of us who remember him are also dead: Philip Seynour Hoffman, above, who turns in yet another outstanding -- living, breathing, huffing and puffing -- performance. As his wife, Christina Hendricks (below) adds another feather in her growing cap of odd movie roles, as does Richard Jenkins (two photos below), as the newspaper reporter whose work sets off the final fire storm (and evidently recalls author Dexter's own story). Also on board is John Turturro (bottom, left) as a pleasantly criminal type (compare his work here with that of Fading Gigolo to better appreciate this guy's versatility).

Standout support is provided by the likes of Eddie Marsan and Joyce Van Patten, among many others. Finally, it's the tone of the tale -- it keeps moving back and forth from comic dark to just-plain-black -- that makes God's Pocket (the name of the little community in which our story takes place) such an unusual film. I have deliberately left out much mention of plot because you deserve to experience first-hand the surprises the movie has in store.

While we can and do appreciate many of these characters as oddball individuals, we can also understand the gut feeling we're left with at the film's conclusion, when the "general public," as it were, has run amok. The movie leaves you with the strong sense that "we, the people" are the last ones to be trusted to do the right thing.

God's Pocket is an original that's as black as they come and almost as quietly funny. Filmmaker Slattery and his cast deliver the goods to the point that I can safely predict: Like it or not, you won't forget this movie.
The film opens today, Friday, May 9, in New York City at the IFC Center, and in Los Angeles at The Landmark. Elsewhere? Don't know, but by next Wednesday, May 14, it'll be available nationwide via VOD.

Note: Mr. Slattery will appear in person on Saturday, 

May 10, for a Q&A after the 7:45pm show, and on 

Sunday, May 11, for a Q&A after the 3:15pm show.

On his own: Thomas Haden Church scores big in Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais' film, WHITEWASH

What a genuinely interesting actor is Thomas Haden Church. He seems to work consistently (57 credits -- TV and film -- over 25 years). He pops up all over the place: Right now he's in the hot new Christian movie, Heaven Is for Real, as well as the film under consideration here. If smash roles like the one he had in Sideways don't come along that often, Mr. Church is never less than a pleasure to watch in just about anything. One of those really good roles is his once again, as WHITEWASH, an oddly appealing Canadian movie from co-writer (with Marc Tulin) and director, Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, makes its straight-to-VOD debut this week, after winning M. Hoss-Desmarais the Best New Narrative Director award at last year's Tribeca Film Fest.

The filmmaker, shown at right, has bitten off quite a dark tale -- one of those designed to absolutely prove that no good deed shall go unpunished -- but he and M. Tulin, together with their on-screen-nearly-every-moment star, handle everything with such a light touch that, remarkably, we never feel bogged down in sorrow and depression.

You cannot in good faith call Whitewash a comedy, not even a black one, and yet it glides over some appalling stuff with such ease and near-charm that you can't call it a thriller, tragedy or even drama, either. In fact, the movie is pretty close to one-of-a-kind, anchored by Church's "everyman" performance -- if everyman were really unlucky.

The movie begins on a snow-stormy night when, almost immediately, something awful happens. What is particularly strange about this something awful is that we do not see it from  the POV we expect. Why, we wonder? Even so, we hope or maybe know that, somehow, this will eventually be revealed.

It is, along with a lot more. Little by little, as something in the present -- peeing, for instance -- induces a remembrance of things past, we learn what happened and why. The story is full of ironies, and though the character Church plays -- a forced-out-of-work snow-plow driver named Bruce -- may not be the brightest bulb on the block, even he can appreciate the irony in his current situation: a kind of man-against-the-elements and man-against-himself.

The only other character of note is the odd fellow Bruce gets involved with: Paul, played awfully well, in mystery mode, by Marc Labrèche (at left). There are some other, minor characters, but this is really all Mr. Church's movie, and he aces it. What makes him such an interesting actor is how little effort he must put out to nail an emotion, a moment, an entire scene. The actor is remarkably agile in finding the right expression, tone, stance. His role as Bruce is a particularly physical one, strenuous and deflating, and Church uses his craggy-but-handsome features and thick-but-agile body to very good purpose.

To say more of the plot would simply spoil some of the surprise of Hoss-Desmarais' movie, which succeeds in finding a smart balance of realism and deadpan, darkness and humor. If the above sounds interesting, take a chance on Whitewash. From Oscilloscope and running 90 minutes, the film hits VOD this Friday, May 2, in most major markets -- and is already available via iTunes.

Tragedy -- or the nearest thing to it -- in Nick Murphy's fine police drama, BLOOD

We don't see much these days that qualifies as tragedy or even comes close to that definition. Which makes the U.S. theatrical debut of BLOOD -- a 2012 film from director Nick Murphy (shown below), who gave us one of 2011's better ghost stories, The Awakening -- all the more newsworthy.

This unrelenting British movie features a superlative cast, with each member playing at the top of his game. Blood, which is all about family, also involves some of that famous red stuff, yet the meaning of the film's title cuts pretty equally in both directions.

The story concerns a family of British policemen in a small coastal town: a father slowly losing out to dementia (Brian Cox) and his two sons -- one played by Paul Bettany, who has a wife and daughter; the other by Stephen Graham, who has a steady girlfriend in tow.

Mr. Graham (above) remains generally unsung -- on these shores, anyway -- but he's a fine actor, and this film gives him the best role he's had in some time. Ditto Mr. Bettany, below, who often falls into showy performances (or maybe they're just showy roles in showy films). Here he does nothing more than is necessary and absolutely nails his character -- and us.

As usual, however, it's Mark Strong (below), clearly one of the more versatile of the newer crop of British actors, who comes off as most memorable. If you compare just three of Strong's recent performances -- in Welcome to the Punch, The Guard, and Tinker Tailor Solider Spy -- to this one, you'll discover a fellow of surprising strengths as an actor. Here, as the quiet, very focused outsider on the police force, he brings a lovely subtlety and deep feeling to his role.

What makes Blood approach the tragic level is how the misdeeds of the males in this proud and arrogant family come home to roost, along with all the guilt and frustration that go with them. How the actions of the two brothers resonate painfully throughout their families, the police force and the town they serve, as well as the irony of who hastens their downfall and how, makes for a movie that is extremely brooding and bleak, though rich in fine characterization.

This film is evidently a kind of telescoped remake of a British TV series from 2004 called Conviction, which I have not seen. Though more could certainly be packed into six hours than in the 92 minutes shown here, I must say that this hour-and-a-half proves pretty spectacular on its own shortened terms.

Blood, from RLJ Entertainment, opens this Friday, August 9, exclusively at AMC theaters in major cities across the country: in Atlanta at the Colonial 18, in Chicago at the Streets of Woodfield 20, in Dallas at the Grapevine Mills 30, in Detroit at the Forum 30, in Houston at the Studio 30, in Kansas City at the Studio 30 with IMAX and Dine-in Theatres, in L.A. at the Burbank Town Center 8, in NYC at the Empire 25, in Philadelphia at the Cherry Hill 24, and in Seattle at the Loews Oak Tree. Meanwhile, the film has also been available via VOD since July 11.

Cristian Mungiu's BEYOND THE HILLS opens -- highlighting those special joys of Romania

Yet another chapter in the ongoing parade of movies designed to set the Romanian Tourist Board's teeth on edge, Cristian Mungiu's latest endeavor -- BEYOND THE HILLS (Dupa dealuri) -- is one more look at what surely appears to be a no-hope society. If you can find a trace of the "h" word in this very long look at female bonding under the thumb, of course, of ignorant males in the "new" Romania, I'll be very impressed. Maybe even hopeful myself.

If TrustMovies had to find one single word that might stand for what's missing in this country's citizens, at least according to most of the movies he's seen from there of late, it would be autonomy. Not that we're all that good at it over here, either, but I think we've probably had a lot more time and opportunity to learn how to manage it as individuals. As Mr. Mungiu (shown at right) observes things, so many of the people we meet, particularly the women and even the male doctor under whose care one of our heroines finds herself, are so in hock to religious faith (now that they've "given up" their Communist path of being in hock to the state), that they can't begin to think or even feel for themselves.

Regarding that MD mentioned above, his Rx for our poor patient consists of Zyprexa, Levomepromazia -- and reading the Scriptures. The movie is full of small minds and simple minds, so much so that it makes the Romanian masterpiece The Death of Mr. Lazarescu look like a model of caring & concern (which, in its bleak, sad way, it is).

In fact, this explains the slightly queasy feeling I have concerning Mungiu's films (which include 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days): They seem shut off to any other possibility except straight-ahead darkness. The films of Cristi Puiu ("Lazarescu," Aurora) and Cornelieu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective) for all their darkness, still leave a door ajar to possibility.

The story this time concerns two young women (above and below), long-time friends since their days being raised in an orphanage. One, Alina, has gone to Germany for a time to work but has now returned, intending to bring her friend, Voichita, back to Germany, too. The latter, unfortunately, is hooked on some religious cult (or maybe this kind of thing is standard religion in Romania), into which she hopes to bring her friend. Alas, she does.

As things go from black to darker, it does seem at times that Alina possesses at least a tad's worth of autonomy. But the crazy manner in which she chooses to use it would indicate that Romanian autonomy is tantamount to madness.

The two girls clearly shared, for a time at least, a love that was both emotional and physical, but now religion prevents any return to that sort of thing. Anytime anyone opens his or her mouth (with the exception of one woman doctor, at the finale), only misplaced faith/garbage spills out.

You will feel strongly for these young women, so yes, the movie is very upsetting. But it is also something of a freight train on its track to a destination that is never in doubt. At least a dollop of doubt is generally a healthy thing -- in society as in film. But if you've a yen for giving in to the bleak, this is certainly the movie for you.

Beyond the Hills, from Sundance Selects and running a very long two-and-one-half hours, opens Friday, March 8, in New York (at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema) and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, with a nationwide roll-out to follow in the weeks to come.