Mafioso Reviews
Slant Magazine
Mafioso is many things, but a good movie ain't one of 'em.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
TV Guide's Movie Guide
[A] depressing crime drama.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Top CriticStrange, entertaining and disquieting.
It takes a while to adjust to its rhythm, but this is essential viewing for cinephiles.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
[Actor] Alberto Sordi lifts buffoonery to the level of high art.
Arizona Daily Star
Director Alberto Lattuada's seriocomic 1962 look at the Sicilian mob lifestyle broke the omerta, providing a look at the sordidly fascinating life of the wiseguy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Premiere Magazine
Uproariously delightful... Mafioso isn't a straight black satire of Sicilian culture so much as a suspenseful near-tragedy leavened by the zesty, irreverent wit that helped define the golden age of Italian comedies.
Mafioso may be 45 years old, but it's as bracingly relevant as anything else in theaters today. Even in the heat of a dry Sicilian summer, the film looks fresh as a lemon tree. And when you bite down hard, it's just as bitter.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
St. Paul Pioneer Press
No wonder Mafioso vanished without a trace when it was released in 1962; the mordant mobster comedy was about 45 years ahead of its time.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Lessons of Darkness
Lattuada ... crisply addresses relevant issues of national and personal identity while never neglecting his film's underlying humor.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
RogerEbert.com
Nothing quite prepares you for the unique experience of this film. It's an offer that you ... well, you know. Leave the gun, take the cannolis. Mangiate bene.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Film-Forward.com
Even some 40 years after it was made, Mafioso packs heat.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Reeling Reviews
This 1962 film is a marvel, a piece before its time that is incredibly funny while delivering a gut punch of a morality drama.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Reeling Reviews
...a masterpiece film that readily rivals the best modern American gangster film.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Brilliant neglected and underappreciated film about the Sicilian mafia.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Alberto Lattuada's tricky-to-parse Mafioso dates from 1962 but, with its abrupt tonal shifts and disturbing existential premise, this nearly forgotten dark comedy could be the most modern (or at least modernist) movie in town.
We can only wonder how Mafioso struck American audiences in its brief 1962 appearance. In 2007, it reveals the universal hallmarks of a classic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
[Director] Lattuada still moves the story forward with cold and devious skill. He knows how to get you to laugh, and he knows how to make that laugh stick in your throat.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
I will say this: If you love mob movies, Mafioso is a must.
| Original Score: B+
Is it a droll drama? A dark comedy? Let's just say that the film's startling shifts in mood fit this movie about a man and country divided. And that it appears to be padrino to The Godfather.
| Original Score: 3/4
