Cento giorni a Palermo (1984) - film review

In the early 1980s, Sicily is in the grip of the Mafia.  After a series of high profile political assassinations in the Sicilian town of Palermo, General Dalla Chiesa is appointed police chief and he immediately begins to wage a war against the gangsters.  But as he soon discovers, the influence of the Mafia extends far and wide, reaching even the highest echelons of the government and judicial system...

Cento giorni a Palermo is not so much a gangster film as a strikingly realistic account of an unsuccessful attempt by the authorities to crack down on Sicilian mobsters in the early 1980s.  Uncompromising in the violence it depicts, the film has a trenchant documentary feel and vividly portrays the seemingly hopeless task faced by those trying to restrain the activities of the Mafia and other rival gangs at the time.  

The film is notable for being the penultimate screen outing for Lino Ventura, one of the legends of French cinema, here, for once, speaking in his native Italian.  Ventura’s intense, darkly introspective performance, is what makes this film so gripping and disturbing.  He portrays the real-life General Carlo Dalla Chiesa as a man of ruthless determination, a man whose resolve and courage are bound to see him triumph.  When we see the General’s fate at the hands of his enemies, it is genuinely shocking, and we are reminded that, in real life, the good guys do not always win.

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