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      Hands Over the City

      1962 1h 45m Drama List
      Reviews 87% 250+ Ratings Audience Score An entrepreneur secures land for a construction project through political complicity. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

      View All (26) audience reviews
      Audience Member There's so much to love here: the bombastic performance of Steiger, the film's bitterly cynical view of business, and for just being a plain savage movie which kind of just tells us like it is. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Recensioni arretrate 3: Capolavoro da mostrare nelle scuole. Drammaticamente triste che 50 anni dopo il film sia di un'attualità mostruosa. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member I have now seen two Rosi films and have this to say about both of them: despite their portrayals of events that might now seem dated, these films retain an immediacy, an urgency to acknowledge the power games that are played in all governments, past and present. Hands Over the City is a powerful film that urges us to be cognizant by filming shady dealings in opulent rooms, the black and white cinematography acting like a stark x-ray of the ugly interior of political surreptitiousness. Rod Steiger is the outlier of the film as he was a noted Hollywood actor acting in an otherwise documentary-style film, but his involvement in no way detracts from the overall message. On the contrary, Steiger gives a poignantly restrained performance where all of his character's thoughts are reflected on the claylike malleability of his face. He stands as the ominous monolith to deception and unadulterated avarice that the film so nobly and thoroughly attacks. Rosi is an important filmmaker. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Francesco Rosi made some of Italy's best political realist films of the 60's, and this one, about a ruthless land developer using his political position to further his business, and avoid criminal charges, is especially wordy and penetrating. The black and white photography is stunning. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member Por fin una brillante película de crítica social que no tiene desenlace feliz ni martirio final. Esta película debería ser obligatoria para todos los estudiantes de leyes, aspirantes a políticos o simplemente para quienes desean ser educados en como se manejan los asuntos de estado en nuestro tiempo y en todo lugar. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review walter m "Hands over the City" is a compelling look at municipal corruption in Naples that states that while this is an imagined story, the circumstances are very real. The movie starts with a building collapse that claims two lives.(And I am left wondering how they got that shot in the first place.) In the city council chambers, De Vita(Carlo Fermariello), the leader of the left, calls for an investigation into the accident but is blocked. So, he takes a different tack by investigating the procedures for approving building permits. What they find is not pretty. All roads lead to Edoardo Nottola(Rod Steiger), an ambitious property developer, and crooked as they come. But he is not alone. The others are just better at hiding. For example, one official mentions an approval took three days when it usually takes six to twelve months. His colleague marvels at the efficiency. But the point of democracy is to slow things down enough so that nobody does anything hasty and will regret. Democracy is also about serving the public which the center-right coalition in the film seeks to subvert by taking power for the sake of it and of course the money to be made. At least, the left has the people's interests at heart. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Hands Over the City

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      Critics Reviews

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      Fernando F. Croce Slant Magazine For the most part, however, the film remains rigorous in its refusal to draw tidy conclusions. Rated: 3/4 Oct 14, 2006 Full Review Yasser Medina Cinefilia Rosi builds it with a rather sober staging that never loses the dramatic depth or the sense of polysemic realism to interrogate bureaucratic corruption in the municipal sphere of post-war Italian society, [Full review in Spanish] Rated: 7/10 Jun 3, 2022 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews One of cinema's most complex looks at how democracy is corrupted by a system that doesn't work. Rated: A- Apr 12, 2011 Full Review Jake Euker Filmcritic.com a bracingly muckraking piece of filmmaking Rated: 3.5/5 Nov 7, 2006 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis An entrepreneur secures land for a construction project through political complicity.
      Director
      Francesco Rosi
      Screenwriter
      Raffaele La Capria, Enzo Forcella, Enzo Provenzale, Francesco Rosi
      Production Co
      Galatea Film
      Genre
      Drama
      Original Language
      Italian
      Release Date (DVD)
      Oct 24, 2006
      Runtime
      1h 45m