Running a small business is hard. The cost of materials constantly goes up while the demand that you keep your prices down is high. Customers are awful. Subcontractors and vendors are unreliable. Some months things are going well, success seems within your grasp, and then the next month the roof caves in. Business dries up, unexpected costs come flying in. It has gotten to the point that even when things are going well, I can’t enjoy it because I know a fallow period will be coming soon.
Buy A Man On His Knees Blu-rayNino Peralta (Giuliano Gemma) understands this all too well. When he was younger he couldn’t find work at all so he turned to crime. He became one of the best car thieves in Palermo, Italy. Things were good until he got caught. Two years in prison turned him around. He swore he’d never steal again. He used some of that car-thieving money the police couldn’t find and bought a little roadside drink stand. It isn’t much, but it has a fine location and business is good.
But there are always hassles. He has to pay some mob guys money every week to stay in business. Now they are saying the price is going up because the cafe across the street can no longer pay as much as he used to. The cafe owner says Nino’s success is losing him business. Success is expensive.
And now his friend Colicchia (Tano Cimarosa), who used to be a crook himself and now works at the drink stand, says that a hitman is looking for him. This man, Platamonte (Michele Placido), shared a cell with Colicchia in prison. Now he kills people for money. He has been asking about Peralta around town.
What did Peralta do to deserve this? Did he cross some mafioso? Who knows? Peralta is not a man who bends easily. He’s not going to crawl around begging for his life. When those mob guys asked for more money, he told them no. Now that a hitman is asking about him, he’s going to confront him. Ask him what it is all about.
What it’s all about is that someone kidnapped a mob lawyer’s wife. Someone else ratted them out and the wife was found. She was found just across the way from Peralta’s drink stand. Peralta even served the kidnapper’s drinks a time or two. He didn’t know what they were up to; it was just business. But one of his cups found its way into the kidnapper’s lair and the mob thinks he might have had something to do with it. Now Peralta is on a kill list. There’s no reason to investigate the situation or find out if he actually had something to do with the kidnapping. This is the mafia we’re talking about. It is better to kill first and not bother with questions later.
Somehow, Peralta convinces Platamonte that he’s innocent. Platamonte agrees to help him out. At a price. Nothing is ever free. Peralta must sell his drink stand and hand over every penny he has. Meanwhile, his wife and children live in fear. Others associated with the kidnapping get murdered while the rest run and hide.
It all leads him to the boss, Don Fabbricante (Ettore Manni), where Peralta realizes that sometimes even a strong man finds himself down on his knees.
With a different set of filmmakers, A Man on His Knees could have been an exciting crime thriller. Star Giuliano Gemma was actually known as an action hero. But director Damiano Damiani had something else in mind. He shoots it in the Italian neorealism style, infusing the film with gravitas and sadness it might not otherwise have. This completely works for me.
Instead of showy action sequences, we get nuanced character beats. Peralta is a good man. He only turned to crime in the first place because he had no other options. Now, with his back against the wall, he’ll have to resort to crime once again. The boss has forgiven him, but now he’ll want a favor. He’ll demand obedience.
His relationship with Colicchia is sweet. They are old friends and clearly care for each other even though they constantly bicker like an old married couple. His wife Lucia (Eleonora Giorgi) is more than the typical cinematic wife in these types of films. She longs for a quiet life, but understands who her husband was and is, and knows what he has to do to escape this situation.
Even Platamonte has nuance. He’s not the typical cold-blooded hitman you usually find in the movies. He can be manipulative and calculating. He murders for money after all, but he’s also quite charming and sensitive. We find out late in the film, he is a family man. Killing people for hire is only a job. He has to provide for his family and this is the best work he could find.
The real villain of the piece is the mob boss. He’s the one pulling the strings, putting his boot on the necks of the common man. Working with the politicians and the police, these organizations strangle the working class. They force good men into lives of crime.
I came to the film expecting another typical poliziotteschi. I expected car chases and shootouts. I expected grit and violence. What I got was a rather moving tale of a good man brought down. A political story about how men with money and political power take from the working man and give him no options but crime. What I got was nothing short of a masterpiece.
Radiance Films presents A Man on His Knees with a new 4K restoration from the original negative. It looks absolutely beautiful. There is a naturalness in the cinematography that comes through brilliantly. Extras include archival interviews with stars Giuliano Gemma, Tano Cimarosa, and assistant director Mino Giarda, and a new interview with Alberto Pezzotta, author of Regia Damiano Damiani. There is new artwork, and a nice booklet with an essay on the film from Roberto Curti.
