(L’ultima Notte di Amore)
From its stunning opening aerial shot past the Duomo di Milano and Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II and the further broad landscape which is Milan, Italy, this film captures rapt attention.
Last Night of Amore (2023) – the first feature film in Italian by writer-director Andrew di Stefano – is a thriller which is perfectly paced.
Guido Michelotti’s opening shot, with pounding soundtrack compiled by Santi Pulveronti, takes as long as needed to show the many credits before focusing in on an apartment where a party is happening.
A small boy fires toy darts from a gun into the roomy rear end of a man on a phone while guests await the arrival of Franco Amore (Pierfrancesco Favino), a 35-year veteran police officer on the eve of retirement.
I mention the key production members for a reason. Last Night of Amore is the first film I have seen in decades of watching in which the components of the film’s presentation struck such a chord.
Di Stefano’s framing of the shots, the teasing opening scene which, when shown later in the film, has such a completely different meaning, and the tension created in interior car shots signifies the emergence of a director to watch.
He also wrote the screen play, a lively thriller where Franco on his last night at work, runs foul of a system he has so diligently enforced in a long career.
However, it’s not through police work that causes the officer angst.
Like many service people whose wages do not reflect their contribution to society, Franco has a second job, driving his wife Vivianne’s (Linda Caridi) cousin Cosimo (Antonio Gerardi) to various assignations.
It is hinted that the Calabrian-born Vivianne’s family has a background in organised crime and that this stigma has resulted in Franco never advancing his career past lieutenant.
Cosimo (the corpulent man in the opening scene) is a jeweller dealing in high-end goods with celebrity clients. While he does business, Franco waits in his unmarked police car writing his farewell speech.
At one of these, Cosimo calls him in a panic. The elderly Chinese businessman, with whom he has been sharing two prostitutes, has had a heart attack. Franco saves the man’s life.
In appreciation Zhu Zhang (Mao Wen) offers Franco a post-retirement role as his security officer.
When this offer is made, we see Zhang in his apartment, surrounded by family and staff. He is recuperating and seated in an outdoor chair, wearing a white singlet, reminiscent of Hyman Roth in The Godfather II (1974).
The allusion is accurate. Like Roth, Zhu Zhang hides a devious income behind the facade of gentle-looking and respectable old man. However, his plans for Franco seem respectful enough until he hands responsibility to his son-in-law.
Against his better judgement, Franco accepts the son-in-law’s directive to begin his duties before his police career ends and he brings in his partner Dino (Francesco di Leva) to help. Dino is father of the little boy firing the darts at the party.
From here ensues a thrilling film noir ride that the viewer just knows will go wrong. Inside their car, Franco, Dino and two Asian passengers, Fei Fei (Wang Fei) and a menacing-looking bodyguard, travel from Malpensa airport to Milano Centrale.
I didn’t want the interior shots of this journey to end. Similarly to the car scene in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), it mesmerised with the interaction of the passengers, all filmed at close range in a small vehicle. It was a car chase of sorts, but at the speed limit.
Further plot revelation would ruin a film I urge everyone to see. Suffice to say, the earlier references to Franco having never fired his gun in 35 years of police work come strongly to the fore.
Coincidentally Pierfrancesco Favino played in the movie version of Suburra (2015), also filmed by Guido Michelotti. In this film, later made into an excellent TV series, Favino plays an Italian MP, who becomes ripe for Mafia blackmail when he is involved in a tragic meeting with two prostitutes.
Michelotti also filmed the TV series Gomorrah (2014-17), a tale of gangsters and evil set in Naples.
If you liked Last Night of Amore, then both these TV series are worth investigation.
4.5
I WRIGHT 