Loose Cannons Review

• 16th Dec 2010

The English speaking world has I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry. The Italian speaking world has Loose Cannons. Now, I hate to be stereotypical but when god was creating the planet and dishing out the class, Italy got the lion’s share; their country is shaped like a shoe, after all! Loose Cannons is a simply beautiful film, made with all the love and attention to detail you’d expect from the nation which brought us spaghetti Bolognese. Ok, stereotyping over… promise!

Starring Italian heart throb Riccardo Scamarcio as the younger brother to Antonio, the apple of daddy’s eye (played by the dashing Alessandro Preziosi), the story follows Tommaso Cantone (Scamarcio) following the aftermath of his elder brother’s ‘coming out’. There’s just one catch: he’s gay too. In the wake of his brother’s hasty departure, Tommaso is left to pick up the pieces and bear the weight of his father’s rather traditional expectations for him whilst hiding a forbidden love affair with an old university friend. Inevitably things come to blows before long, culminating in a poignant but oddly familiar seeming death (those of you who have seen Jonny Depp’s Chocolat will know what I mean) and a prodigal son’s return to a father’s begrudging acceptance.

The film is absolutely beautifully shot, the golden lighting bathing the set in all the mellowness and perfection of the Italian countryside. No stone is left unturned and as such the sets are lavish, affluent and perfectly co-ordinated with the wealthy pasta-making Cantone family. Being in Italian I can’t say much for the screen play except the sub-titles were very informative.

As I was in the scouts for a couple of weeks when I was about six, I came prepared and brought a Sicilian friend with me to the screening who dutifully informed me that the language was accurately colloquial for the town in which the film is set (a small town on the ‘toe’, I’m told).  Speaking with her afterwards about the political and social context of the film, I gather it’s a fair representation of small-town provincial Italy, although certainly in the big cities things are much more open and accepting.

So not only is Loose Cannons a sensitive and thoroughly entertaining watch, it is also a cultural snapshot into a reality which perhaps the less well-travelled amongst us (i.e. me) would not be able to experience and also the men are really, really good looking.

Dani Singer