Camorra movie Piranhas (2019). An adaptation of Saviano's third book La paranza dei bambini. I liked it a lot.

The story revolves around 15-year-old Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli) and his friends, who spend most of their days wandering the streets of the Neapolitan neighborhood of Rione Sanità. The underworld is here the upper world, and it controls the entire social life of the city. No wonder these big boys are attracted to the fast money of the crime world. Nicola has just a little more to offer than his friends in terms of intelligence and swagger, and quickly manages to climb up the ranks.

In interviews, director Giovannesi spoke broadly about the underprivileged boys who start working for the mafia at an increasingly younger age, and the social circumstances that lead them to crime. But too little of those backgrounds has ended up in the film. Nicole and his friends are already incorrigible mourners when the movie starts, and the biggest problem in his single mother's life is the extortion of her dry cleaners by the mafia.

It's an effective crime film, Piranhas narratively relies heavily on the blueprints set by previous films in the genre - from Gomorrah itself to Martin Scorsese's classic Goodfellas (1990).


"The king is dead, long live the king!"