Boys try to be men, especially when boys try to be gangsters in the brand-new ‘Young Mafia’ picture PIRANHAS.
On the streets of Naples, young teenage upstart Nicola lives with his dry cleaner mother and younger brother in the Mafia-controlled Sanitae neighbourhood where he yearns to get into the best nightclub in town, but he and his friends are turned away despite helping a couple of girls stranded on the street en route there (because of their scooter breaking down) who do get in.
Wanting to honour the five hundred euro price tag for a table in the club, they resort to petty thievery, but are caught by the elder statesmen of the neighbourhood who decide to take them on as errand boys delivering drugs and collecting from the local street vendors. Nicola has his eye on one particular girl and takes her out, but as the desire increases to make more money – regardless of the moral or lack of moral consequences –Â it soon becomes a much grander and more problematic existence….
Ok, so there isn’t really anything new to say in this film aside from the obvious crime-doesn’t-pay message and in some ways the film is reminiscent in style of the early young Henry Hill scenes in GOODFELLAS, coupled with perhaps an element of the style of the ‘Little Italy’ flashback segments of THE GODFATHER PART II.
PIRANHAS, as you might have guessed, is pretty familiar stuff, but is elevated above the norm by the fact that it is teenage kids with their over-reaching ambitions to be part of the criminal in-crowd. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano, who also wrote GOMORRAH, there is a lot of appeal to audiences hungry for good crime stories and if you like some of the classic films mentioned, then you will certainly enjoy this.
Even if you have seen this type of film before and can sense where it is going to go, the violence on show still makes you flinch, particularly towards the end and that is a true testament to the ongoing power and fascination that we all have with the gangster genre on all levels.
What also impresses is the fact that the film doesn’t elevate itself to the flamboyance of a SCARFACE where every dollar and cent is spent on the lifestyle. Nicola and his friends are still very wet behind the ears and do have a sense of moral duty to protect those closest to them, something which inevitably is going to be part of their own karma whenever it comes back at them.
An enjoyable, if overly-familiar example of European gangster film, with a very good and talented young ensemble cast of newcomers filling the screen with vibrant energy capturing perfectly the spirit of flawed coming-of-age.
