Bittersweet bio-pic pays tribute to two a couple of Italian prosecutors crazy enough to take on the mob.
Comment
02/18/08
Excellent Cadavers (2006)
77 %
Reviews Counted: 22 Fresh: 17 Rotten:5 Average Rating: 6.7/10
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Synopsis: Based on the book by Italian-American author Alexander Stille and featuring the photos of Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, EXCELLENT CADAVERS chronicles the recent history of the Mafia and its integral--and seemingly ineradicable--relationship to postwar Italian... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Director: Marco Turco
Reviews
Every history book has a mundane chapter you don't want to study that will still be covered on the final exam.
06/17/07
Within 20 minutes, all the accumulated romance of scores of Mafia epics washes away, and all the accumulated nonsense about 'men of honor' and 'men of respect' circles the drain.
11/03/06
Despite new leadership in this country of great wines, world-leading design, and art both classical and modern (including fimmaking), the pattern seems to say that Italy is destined to live with the corruption that rules the corridors of power.
10/29/06
In showing all the stuff that the History Channel discreetly edits out, Excellent Cadavers dismantles the celluloid romanticizing of the Mafia.
10/26/06
This gripping Italian documentary (2005) recounts the decadelong campaign by magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to break the back of the Sicilian Mafia.
10/26/06
A rich mine of information on a subject about which it is sometimes too easy to be superficial.
09/14/06
Marco Turco's film is a thorough, journalistic examination that is ultimately as horrifying as it is informative.
07/25/06
Top Critic
Anyone with the slightest interest in mob entertainment -- from The Godfather to The Sopranos -- should check out Marco Turco's grimly compelling documentary
07/14/06
Excellent Cadavers uses archival footage to place the war in the context of the longtime alliance between the Mafia and crooked Italian politicians, but there's little, if anything, that will be new for those interested in the subject.
07/13/06
It soon turns out that the only thing more boring than watching a reporter look up documents is watching a reporter pretend to look up documents.
07/12/06
It should be no surprise -- yet, somehow, it is -- that the Mafia looks, feels, and kills much differently in its native Sicily, where it maintains the power of an infected organ in the body politic.
07/12/06
It shows the Cosa Nostra as the unstoppable and infinitely adaptable virus it is, and serves as a good entree to Stille's far more thorough book.
07/12/06
Too many frames of this documentary are devoted to narrator Stille paging through archives or walking in front of or into ornate buildings.
07/12/06
Marco Turco's absorbing and gut-wrenching look on the Sicilian Mafia and the Italian government's attempts to crush it is essential viewing for anyone interested in recent Italian history.
07/11/06
Marco Turco's meticulous and angry documentary examines the effects of Mafia power on Sicilian society and on Italian political life in the 1980s and early 90s.
07/11/06
Top Critic
Opening with its hero's dramatic death on the highway, Excellent Cadavers is seldom at a loss for excitement.
07/11/06
The cockroach-like resilience of the Sicilian Mafia is examined with careful calculation in this passionate but ultimately resigned documentary.
07/11/06
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