I came into GOMORRAH expecting an Italian version of CITY OF GOD: a grim, gritty story following would-be gangsters as they go about their business on city streets, where violence and corruption are matter of fact and ruthlessness the norm.

I got nothing like.

Honestly speaking, I found GOMORRAH a bore. Rather, an anthology of five separate boring stories, each of them following different non-entities as they find themselves exposed to the criminal world. Mixing stories together like this can achieve a level of exquisite beauty when done right (I'm thinking BABEL),but it takes an exceptionally talented scriptwriter and director for this to occur. GOMORRAH features neither.

The film feels disjointed and dull. The criminal scenes are repetitive and bring no insight into the world of the modern gangster. The shoot-outs are predictable and the characters singularly unpleasant. Voice over narration might have helped a little. Overall, the biggest problem is the the film lacks in coherence. You might as well be watching CCTV footage that abruptly changes location every few minutes. CITY OF GOD this isn't.

This is a collection of five stories about people who are touched by the gritty Neapolitan crime world. There is a gang war erupting. Don Ciro is a scared middleman. He is jumped by the other side and forced to take them back to his location. Roberto works in waste management and his boss Franco is dumping toxic wastes. Pasquale works as a high fashion tailor controlled by the mob. He moonlights for their Chinese competitor but it goes wrong. Marco and Ciro are young gangster wannabes. They get in over their heads.

This is a great faux-realistic take on the modern mob. It opens with a bang. I will always remember the waste disposal because of the subject matter. The two youngsters are probably the most compelling characters. There are some ups and downs. It's a disjointed watch. It's a wide-ranging take on the subject and proves to be an effective one.

This is one of those films where people get up in the morning, sell some drugs, slaughter a few people, indoctrinate a few innocent children, and then go to bed with a smile on their faces. Of course, the smile doesn't last long sometimes because soon some other guy comes in and shoots him and his wife in the head. ThIs is about a crime empire which perpetuates itself through recruitment. Apparently, these people are actually out there, so it is really hard to watch at times. There are two young men who have fallen into this setting who go from being silly and innocent to becoming cannon fodder for the mob. We watch them grow and sort of like them. Unfortunately, what people are doesn't matter because business is business. I can't say I enjoyed one minute of this film, but I have to give it high marks for presenting a culture that is quite unique. I hope that this is a bit of an exaggeration.