The Mafia Only Kills in Summer (La Mafia Uccide Solo d'Estate) - Italian Import Blu-Ray Region B - Crime Comedy Movie for Film Collectors & Italian Cinema Lovers

What gives this black comedy its blackness, and its punch, are the stills of real-life Mafia slayings, and the real-life footage of the funerals of Mafia victims, interspersed between the fictional scenes. There are real-life press clippings and, dotted around Palermo, real-life plaques commemorating the assassinations of judges and policemen - black deeds that blot what is essentially the story of two childhood sweethearts.As a boy, Arturo (Alex Bisconti) falls in love with, and attempts to woo, his new classmate, Flora (Ginevra Antona), the daughter of a local bank manager. When Arturo asks his father for advice about love his father avoids the subject. Luckily for Arturo his question is answered, or so it seems, by the then Prime Minister of Italy Guilio Andreotti who, during a TV interview, describes how he proposed to his wife in a cemetery.Thinking that Italy's most powerful politician is talking to him directly through the medium of the TV screen, Arturo becomes obsessed with Andreotti, to the point of collecting newspaper clippings about him, and to the point of dressing up as his hero for a fancy dress competition.The childhood scenes during the first half of the film are charming, but for me the charm (and the plot) falls flat after the roles of Arturo and Flora are eventually assumed by adult actors. Pif the TV clown is unconvincing as a romantic lead, and the foundation of the rekindled romance between Arturo and Flora is sketchy and implausible. But despite its shortcomings, this is still a movie worth watching. It's a good directorial debut by Pif. However, had he delegated the role of the grown-up Arturo to a serious actor, and had he spent more time on the second-half of the script, it could have been a great one.