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One Hundred Steps

721 votes

Peppino Impastato is a quick-witted lad growing up in 1970s Sicily. Despite hailing from a family with Mafia ties and living just one hundred steps from the house of local boss Tano Badalamenti, Peppino decides to expose the Mafia by using a pirate radio station to broadcast his political pronouncements in the form of ironic humour.

Status: Released

Released Date: 2000-09-01

Runtime: 114 mins

Director: Marco Tullio Giordana

Spoken language: Italiano, English

Genres: Drama, History

Original title: One Hundred Steps

Production Companies: Titti Film, RAI Cinema

Production Countries: Italy

Cast

Luigi Lo Cascio

Luigi Maria Burruano

Lucia Sardo

Paolo Briguglia

Tony Sperandeo

Andrea Tidona

Claudio Gioè

Domenico Centamore

Antonino Bruschetta

Paola Pace

Pippo Montalbano

Moglie di Cesare Manzella

Aurora Quattrocchi

Zù Gasparo

Gaspare Cucinella

Paolino Schillirò

Dario Veca

Reviews

Geronimo1967

This has quite a poignant underlying message of complicity and compliance as it tells the true story of firebrand young man Peppino Impastato (Luigi Lo Cascio). He lives on a mafia-dominated Sicily in a family led by his acquiescing father Luigi (Luigi Maria Burruano). It's not that his dad is cowardly, far from it, but he has a wife (Lucia Sardo) and another son, Giovanni (Paolo Briguglia), so is constantly conscious that any resistance to the established order could prove perilous. Peppino has all the vigour and irresponsibility of his age and together with some friends sets up a local radio station that mixes a contemporary mix of classic rock music with some fairly direct rantings about the local "don" - comparing him to legendary Sioux chief Sitting Bull holding court over a tribe full of drug users and sleazy hookers. This isn't a gun-toting organisation. It doesn't need to be. It gets it's way by a combination of carrot and stick approaches. If the population co-operate then life can be good, but if they stray from the arbitrary control of "Tano" (Tony Sperandeo) then they might find themselves starring in their own personal version of a Buster Keaton film. Cascio is on strong form here offering us quite a compelling presentation of a young man who genuinely believed that his on-air protestations could elicit change for good and when his family warn him of the risks - to them and to him - that just seems to galvanise him. The conclusion is history; a sad and depressing history that rather well illustrated the extent of the collusion that existed between the authorities and the "authorities" and the disposability of an inconvenient life. Briguglia also contributes well as does Sardo as his strong-willed but increasingly wary mother whilst the writing offers us a lively bedrock for characters that mingled passion with prescience in an entertaining and engaging fashion. The production looks good and it's well worth a watch.

2024-12-01

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