Renato Vallanzasca, born in Milan in 1950, once freed a tiger from captivity in a local circus. He was sent to a juvenile correction centre for his pains and thereafter became "boss of the Comasina", committing murder after murder during robberies and kidnappings.
He spent much of his life in prison, and that is where Michele Placido's film begins.
Vallanzasca was something of a legend, eventually fighting a bloody battle with Sardinian criminals even more violent than himself, and Placido and Kim Rossi Stuart, who plays him brilliantly, paint him in this long film as a man with charm and the audacity to give his guards as good as he gets.
What we don't get is any more than a hint of how criminal activity changed for the worse during Vallanzasca's reign as the Sardinian and Calabrian mafia replaced the local gangs of robbers. Nor do we get a more general history of the period. It's a movie not an investigation, Placido maintains.
If it falls short of either Gomorrah or A Prophet, it is an above average prison thriller, telling us of a strange man who fought most of his enemies to a standstill until he died.
Angels Of Evil (Vallanzasca - Gli Angeli Del Male)
Cert: 15
