Clevertimfish this is a slow, somewhat disjointed little number. it holds an enjoyable darkness that keeps you just out of your comfort zone.better subtitles would have helped along with less random plot lines, however there is a lot to make up for that, it is cleverly filmed and you are left with a feeling for a grimy cheap world of an Italian underclass.the psychopath is a delight and the random criminal activities lurched from surreal to weird without quite hitting the mainstream.I would recommend it of you are looking for something a little different from the usual mainstream pap.

cablooie Plain awful. Do anything else, throw marshmallows at stray dogs, pinch wallets, try to pee in a beer can, sell your body in parts. Anything is better than watching a badly acted and awfully written Kick-Ass/Hancock clone. Terrible B movie. At least Kick-Ass was funny and ironic, Hancock had great special effects, this dough is even trying to be dramatic. The only character building up throughout the movie is the loony girl, and she gets killed for no reason whatsoever. Her acting is dreadful (apparently she comes from a TV reality show), but her character is the only element of interest in the movie. Santamaria is just as wooden as Pinocchio. After she dies anybody else might as well turn into flaming zombies and bite everyone, you wouldn't give a rat's behind, anyway. The wooden puppet playing the bad guy should have been court martialed for his insanely bad acting. Steer clear, it is awful.

James De Bello Enzo Ceccoti (Claudio Santamaria) is a small time thief living in the poor suburbs of Rome under the same roof as more dangerous criminals lead by the 'Zingaro' (Luca Marinelli) from which he occasionally accepts dirty, little jobs. On one of these, whilst escaping from the police, he accidentally trips into a tank of radioactive material and ends up gaining super powers. As a threat rises in the city Enzo has to decide where his morals lie."They Call me Jeeg Robot" ("Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot" original title) comes in as one of the first major Italian production in the super hero genre. Whilst it can't be faulted for lack of diversity and originality, it doesn't manage to transcend genre clichés in a interesting way and because of an overall faulty execution it can be defined as a fine film on its own, yet nothing, unfortunately, remarkable in the genre.The new ideas that spark from the film are many, not all of them work and some are actually the reason the film isn't amazing, but the writers have to be commended for some tropes they manage to subvert and some beautiful touches they manage to add. Ilenia Pastorelli plays Enzo's slightly off balance neighbor and whilst the performances jumps up and down from highs to lows, the character always has something deeply touching about her. I want to avoid spoilers of any sort here, but to sum it up her dynamic was clearly thought out and executed with a pleasant delicacy that was required and hard to hit.Claudio Santamaria is actually an excellent protagonist and one of few words, which Santamaria pulls off greatly. Of all the characters in the film, his was the only one that never lost audience attachment and always gave a clear vision of his motivations and his development. His arch might not be as original as people think, actually quite the contrary, but he is brought to life with an affection and an attention to detail that makes him a character worth following.From a directorial point of view there are many things that could be said both in positive and negative side. What is interesting is to see a first time feature director bring to life such a particular vision. I don't use particular randomly because there are many tonal flaws and ideas that don't work, but there is a very solid voice in the directing and Mainetti pulls his vision off, making his world live and breathe an unusual diversity and an atmosphere that is dark and twisted in its very own way.Where the film looses steam is in some of the performances, coming admittedly from undeveloped or cartoonish characters, from plot turns that result deeply clichéd and deprive the film of a depth it was hinting, but most of all the tonal shifts are all over the place and make for a disjointed experience where you loose track of where the moral balance lies. From darkly comic interventions, to full on dramatic character explosions, to comedic light moments that don't really belong where they are, these continuous shifts make the film really choppy and undermine its world building which is another element it really lacks. We don't understand where in the world the story takes place fictionally, we don't understand the rules of this land, the social climate is never clear for the audience and since it seems that the film is actually making quite an effort to make you understand it, since it plays an important role in the storytelling, the fact that I didn't grasp it was all the more underwhelming.On an action and technical level the film does have merits for managing to cope with such a small budget and making out of it something that is fully deserving of theatrical release. It shows that this is Mainetti's first feature and many edges have to be rounded off in the action department: the hits are never shown on camera. On the other hand, the director uses the hand-held shot in a particularly pleasing way, making the shots breathe and giving each of them multiple beats which is always nice to see.Whilst this movie will not be remembered in the hall of great super hero films from this era it is good to see different personalities jump into the genre and give their own wild take on it even if not succeeding in a masterful execution.

fabiosciarra-1 Gabriele Mainetti has made a quite unusual movie for Italian standard. With an outstanding cinematography and a very good acting, he takes us among "Roma sud" outskirts where a neorealistic superhero and a psychopath villain fight to survive their doomed daily lives. As all good graphic novel teach us, this kind of story need a strong philosophy between the lines, that can't be just replaced with some romantic- even if well done- moments. Too bad: "Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot" just lack strong dialogues and quote to be perfect in its own class. In fact, even if actors are perfect in their own roles, all dialogues target their force overall on roman slang, leaving me a little bit disappointed. Because the movie shows some very violent and bizarre scenes, someone in Italy compared Mainetti style to Tarantino's one. I hope next time Mainetti will borrow from Tarantino not just the violence but also the art of writing script and dialogues strong enough for a superhero movie.