Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot [2015]

February 9, 2017

We are in uncharted waters brothers and sisters. This is the first Italian superhero movie and they fucking nailed it (that suspense really lasted). It’s a different type of a superhero movie, more in sync with the origins of the whole genre. There are basically two types of heroes: a privileged man who must learn humility and a loner/outcast who must learn humanity, and that’s cool, the problem is the execution. If we take comics as the starting point, we can break them into two different segments: visually stunning setups and social commentary. Somewhere along the way, Hollywood took the visually stunning path that just ate up the social commentary and the whole thing just escalated from there. Avengers and Suicide Squad are perfect examples of this approach with Deadpool sabotaging the established boundaries but never breaking out of them. Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot is a human movie about superheroes, a movie that seamlessly transitions between great action sequences, social commentary, and pure human drama. If you gotta a friend who doesn’t like superhero movies and you wanna get them started, just play them this, they will love it.

Enzo Ceccotti is a small-time criminal living in Rome, a city ravaged by corruption and mafia. He lives alone and spends most of his days eating fruit yogurts and watching porn. His only “friend” is Sergio, a mid-level criminal living with his mentally challenged daughter Alessia. Sergio is working for an unstable wannabe boss Zingaro, who just told him to make sure that the two mules, smuggling cocaine into Italy, do their part. Sergio enlists Enzo to help him with this, not aware that this might be a bit trickier than taking a dump…

Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot is truly an Italian movie and this gives it an exotic and honest vibe. This was not brute-forced, but intelligently wrapped and woven into the story. Italian troubles with mafia have been going on for centuries and as the new wave of criminals is organized and upgraded so are their methods. Like the whole public contracts thing, where mafia bled Italy and EU dry, you can read about it more here: Making a killing on contracts: how Italy’s Mafia has plundered EU building funds. And if you’re intrigued by this whole mafia thing, I recommend you check out a phenomenal Italian television show called Gomorra about organized crime in the city of Naples. Salvatore Esposito, playing Vincenzo here, is one of the main characters in that show. Not to mention the football game where I expected to see Totti in some cameo role, pity… There are also many universal subjects examined here, so don’t think this is some movie made purely for an Italian market (it’s not Spanish Cuerpo de élite [2016]). It feels strange to finish this review by mentioning the Alessia’s tits, but they were really perky. Enjoy.