A bloodless mafia manhunt drama

While undoubtedly a crucial aspect of many of the most dramatic events in human history, letter writing is not the most cinematic of activities. And that, alas, is proven once again in Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s “Sicilian Letters,” a heavily fictionalized version of a true Mafia story that sets up a battle of wits between a ruthless mob boss and the family friend who works with the authorities to bring him down, but struggles to maintain any momentum when the duel is merely a case of letters-at-morning.

Elio Germano plays Matteo, a character based on the notorious Sicilian mafioso Matteo Messina Denaro who was the subject of a 30-year manhunt that ended in 2023 when he was finally captured. Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty,” “Loro”) plays the fictional character Catello Polumbo, whose correspondence with Matteo brings the authorities closer than ever to his capture. At the beginning of the film, Catello, a well-read, cultured ex-mayor who is widely described as professoris released after serving a six-year sentence for unspecified crimes, none of which can be as serious as the tonsorial crimes committed against Servillo here. With a majestically unflattering, overgrown hairdo smeared into a slick, unkempt comb-over, Catello cuts a vaguely ridiculous figure, which enhances the film’s comedic credentials but rather detracts from its dramatic power.

Catello discovers that his prickly wife Elvira (Betti Pedrazzi) has fallen on hard times in his absence, and his newly pregnant daughter is engaged to the sloppy but helpful Pino (Giuseppe Tantino), whose puppyish response to Catello’s obvious disdain is to throw his arms around the older man and call him “Daddy.” Pino isn’t the only one with father problems. Far away, while he runs his murderous operations from a hideout in the home of an attractive widow, Lucia (Barbora Bobulova), Matteo is haunted by memories of his own recently deceased mafia boss father.

Particularly in the kind of flashback carefully costumed to ensure we recognize the older versions of everyone because they’ll be wearing the same glasses at 50 that they wore when they were 5, Matteo recalls a day at the beach with his siblings. His father challenges all three of the kids to slit a sheep’s throat, and when his older brother cries and refuses, and his scowling sister is denied entry because she’s a girl, Matteo steps forward. The animal’s blood spurts across his face, and the little ghoul’s muscles seem to quiver with laughter. Father has found his heir to the throne and bestows upon him the family totem of power, a stolen antique statue they call “Pupu.”

All these years later, Matteo controls his shady operations (although the film is largely uninterested in that) with the help of pizzathose tightly folded and glued paper letters that find their way to and from Matteo via a network of front companies and mafia-friendly locals. But the mafia boss, who is less enigmatic than he is thoughtfully drawn, is also an avid reader with a penchant for a literary turn of phrase. So when pizza Starting with the erudite Catello — who was one of Matteo’s father’s best friends — Matteo responds in kind, unaware that the letters are part of a trap set up by the maverick police captain Schiavon (Fausto Russi Alessi). That operation will eventually pair Catello with the strangely antagonistic Inspector Rita Mancuso (Daniela Marra), who delivers even the most innocent dialogue as if her scene partner has just murdered her dog, and who has her own reasons for trusting no one, not even her own superiors.

This is an oddly self-defeating film, tackling themes beyond its imagination and, when they prove elusive, disguising the resulting stumble with a joke. Often the humor lies in the contrapuntal use of Colapesce’s grab-bag score. Or elsewhere, one of Servillo’s hangdog reactions lightens the mood, though it’s a shame that, given that his character is designed as a kind of lovable rogue, he’s not all that lovable or particularly villainous, and that the frequent references to his intelligence are undermined by the failure of virtually all of his enterprises. And though Matteo, quoting from the passage in Ecclesiastes about “the evil under the sun”, muses “And we have so much sun here in Sicily”, you really wouldn’t know it from the shadowy interior locations that limit the expressive potential of expert Sorrentino collaborator Luca Bigazzi’s cinematography. But the disappointment lies mainly in the film’s incoherence of tone, while the director’s last film, “Sicilian Ghost Story,” is a little gem that masterfully combines mafia drama with horror and fantasy elements. That film, also inspired by a real-world incident but unfolding in completely unexpected directions, really deserves the rather grandiose text that opens it: “Reality is a departure point, not a destination.” “Sicilian Letters,” on the other hand, goes on a journey that could easily be described on a postcard.