Gomorrah (2008) Review: The Mafia Without Myth

Is Gomorrah worth watching?

Yes. Gomorrah is a landmark of modern crime cinema, a cold, documentary-like portrait of the Camorra that shows organised crime not as a thrilling world of bosses and shootouts but as an economy that swallows everyone near it. Matteo Garrone’s refusal to romanticise anything makes the film more frightening than most gangster epics. The reservations are its fragmented structure and emotional distance, which can make it hard to follow and harder to love.

What is Gomorrah about?

Gomorrah weaves together five stories set in and around Naples and its grim outlying housing estates, all shaped by the Camorra, the region’s powerful crime system. There is a young boy (Salvatore Abruzzese) drawn towards the local clan, two reckless teenagers (Marco Macor and Ciro Petrone) who idolise movie gangsters and want to become bosses themselves, a skilled tailor in a clan-backed workshop that supplies the fashion industry, a middle-aged courier who delivers payments to the families of imprisoned clan members, and a smooth businessman, played by Toni Servillo, who profits from illegally dumping toxic waste.

None of these characters is a mafia kingpin. Instead, the film shows how the Camorra’s influence runs through ordinary jobs, neighbourhoods and ambitions, and how difficult it is for anyone to stay outside it.

Matteo Garrone directs this Italian-language crime drama from Italy, adapted from Roberto Saviano’s nonfiction bestseller. It runs 137 minutes, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 and was named Best Film at the David di Donatello Awards.

Neorealism for the age of organised crime

Garrone shoots Gomorrah with a stripped-back, almost documentary style: handheld cameras, natural light, real locations and a cast that mixes professionals with non-actors. The concrete stairwells and corridors of the housing estates become a character in themselves, a maze where children run errands for dealers and violence erupts without warning.

That approach removes the pleasures audiences expect from gangster films. There are no charismatic godfathers, no stylish montages and no operatic set pieces. Killings happen quickly, clumsily and often off to the side of the frame, and their aftermath matters more than their choreography. The effect is chilling precisely because it feels so ordinary.

Five stories, one system

The interwoven structure is key to the film’s argument. Each story reveals a different part of the Camorra’s reach, from street-level recruitment to garment sweatshops and the poisoning of the land itself. The waste-dumping strand, with Toni Servillo’s calm, persuasive businessman, is especially disturbing, because it shows how crime blends with legitimate commerce and how its damage spreads far beyond Naples.

The two teenage wannabes provide the film’s darkest irony. Obsessed with movie gangsters, they play at being bosses in a world that has no romance at all, and their bravado exposes the gap between the myths of crime cinema and the reality Garrone depicts. It is a sharp rebuke to decades of gangster glamour.

Where the distance becomes a barrier

Gomorrah’s detachment is deliberate, but it comes at a cost. With five threads and a large cast of unfamiliar faces, some viewers will struggle to keep track of who is who, especially early on. The film rarely lets us inside its characters’ heads, so their fates can feel observed rather than felt, and the heavy Neapolitan dialect and minimal exposition demand close attention. It is a film to admire and absorb rather than to enjoy in any conventional sense.

Who should watch Gomorrah?

It is required viewing for fans of serious crime cinema, admirers of European realism and anyone interested in how organised crime works in practice. Allow for a demanding, bleak viewing experience of more than two hours. The violence is sudden and brutal, including killings and the involvement of children in crime, and there is strong language throughout, so it is for adults.

For more from Italian cinema:

• The Great Beauty, which casts Toni Servillo in a lavish, very different portrait of Italian society.
• The Leopard, Visconti’s classic about how power in southern Italy adapts to survive.

The verdict

Gomorrah is a chilling, uncompromising portrait of organised crime as a social system, and it remains one of the most important crime films of its era. Its distance and complexity make it demanding, but its clarity and courage make it essential.

Rating: 4.5/5