Title: The Gambler Who Would’t Die (Ti Ho Cercata In Tutti I Necrologi)
Director: Giancarlo Giannini
Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, F. Murray Abraham, Silvia De Santis, Jeffrey R. Smith, Jonathan Malen, Andreas Schwaiger, A. Frank Ruffo.
Giancarlo Giannini is a legend of Italian cinema. The great actor and Academy Award nominee, has worked in his home country and all over the globe. Giannini starred in a number of Hollywood productions and is the official Italian dubber of Al Pacino. Throughout his existence as a performer, he stepped behind the camera only once, 20 years ago, with ‘Ternosecco’ (The Numbers Game) and just recently returned to the role of director with ‘The Gambler Who Would’t Die.’
Nikita carries coffins at funerals. One night he attends a poker game, and doesn’t have the means to pay his debt, except for his life. His creditors offer Nikita the chance to extinguish what he owes them by acting as prey of a manhunt: he has 20 minutes to survive. Nikita succeeds but is subsequently drawn to a new inner dimension where terror and madness will weave slowly and mysteriously into his life, leading him to the obsessive and compulsive desire of being chased. The unexpected encounter with the young and beguiling Helena will lead to unforeseen complications.
Giancarlo Giannini has undoubtable a great culture in the art of film-making, for instance he even lectures at the Italian Film School – Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – in Rome. But being a great actor and movie intellectual doesn’t make a great director. ‘Ti Ho Cercata In Tutti I Necrologi’ (the original title that literally translates “I seeked you in all obituaries,” quoting one of the lines in the movie), is drenched with preposterous indecipherable subtext. Many styles overlap along with a cast that performs “asynchronously” (as the director defined it), to remind with mystical solemnity that life is a hunting match. The calvary of the main character is inflicted to the audience, who has to cope with a pretentious existential journey narrated with all the whims of an actor, who plays around with the camera and his vast film erudition forgetting that at times less is more.
Technical: C
Acting: C-
Story: D
Overall: C-
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
