This was a lot more than what I bargained for in a late Saturday night, searching for a decent crime film to watch. ''Una Vita Tranquilla'' is a wonderful, slow-burning character study, pondering on familial relationships, more specifically the father-son bonding and the problem of emotional communication between them. Toni Servillio gives once more a spectacular performance as the veteran mafioso from Naples who sought and found refuge in Germany, now living with his wife and 9-year old son and owning a restaurant. When he gets a visit in Germany from his son and a friend of his, the protagonist will embark once again on a journey that 15 years ago sworn that he would never do again. The pace is slow, but at no time the movie gets tedious or uninteresting as it is the development of characters and the good dialogue that compensate for a not particularly rich plot. Apart from Toni Servillo, the rest of the cast does a terrific and the same goes for Gergely Pohárnok the person behind the magnificent cinematography of the film. As a result, ''Una Vita Tranquilla'' is one of the best psychological/crime European films of the last years.
Review of A Quiet Life
