The Iron Prefect, also known as I am the Law, is an historical drama about a police commandant given complete control of Sicily in the late ’20s. Il Duce, Mussolini, was worried his precious Fascist party would be sullied by associations with the mob, and so he wanted to root them out. So, he sent the most ruthless lawman he had, Cesare Mori, to scour the island, however deep the corruption went.
That sounds like a fantastic movie. Maybe someday someone will make it. But The Iron Prefect, with its great cast and cinematography and story, is almost entirely dramatically inert. Scenes and characters compound upon each other as if the rest of the movie had not happened. Little connects, emotionally, and excepting one excellent sequence in the middle, nothing excites.
Mori arrives in Sicily with his wife (the always exquisite Claudia Cardinale) and immediately begins to lay down the law. He’s approached by various government officials, assuring him of their cooperation, which he assumes (rightly) is obfuscation. Because the second he begins arresting people, he is retaliated against. A family that helped him on his train trip is murdered. His wife is assaulted in a dress shop. This is the bad guys making a mistake because Mori is not intimidated.
What he also is not is engaging. Played by Giuliano Gemma, Mori is a mono-focused animal, brimming with anger that only occasionally boils over. It’s a fine performance, but there’s not much behind it. So many things in the film are hinted at… and then dropped. He sends his wife away and immediately begins contacting a peasant woman from the village. Does this lead to an illicit romance? No. It leads to nothing.
The film is almost bizarre in its inability to connect its fascinating subject matter with dramatically interesting content. The only really engaging sequence happens when Mori conducts a siege on a town run by bandits. There’s action, violence, wailing women. It all works here. But for most of the movie, these things happen in weird isolation.
There’s a scene near the end of the film where gangsters are sent away from Sicily towards Rome to face trial. The imagery is largely of weeping women waving their handkerchiefs and Ennio Morricone’s beautiful, baleful soundtrack. These are gangsters, the ostensible hero of the film has run off, but the scene plays like a tragedy. This, to me, seems like a movie that doesn’t quite know what it is doing.
In terms of cinematography and staging, this film is astoundingly beautiful. The locations (not Sicily, unfortunately) show off the beautiful Italian landscapes impeccably. The acting is beyond reproach. But The Iron Prefect never gives us characters. It never gives us a reason to give a damn. I loved to look at it, but I didn’t care to watch it.
The Iron Prefect has been released on Blu-ray by Radiance Films. Video extras include an archival interview with director Pasquale Squitieri and star Giuliano Gemma (35 min); a new interview with Domenico Monetti (40 min), the director’s biographer; and an appreciation by Alex Cox (12 min).
