A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I beg to disagree with almost everyone on this one. There is nothing overtly 'artistic' about this movie. It treats real, tragic events with total superficiality and no feelings. The mafia bosses are pathetic caricatures, not bloodthirsty killers and cutthroat businessmen. It all looks like a 'see no evil, hear no evil do-good- er' cartoon...I was there in those years, and I can assure everyone, there was nothing even remotely funny or entertaining in the affairs pictured in the movie. In this film everything is pictured as if it was all a joke, as if the dead weren't really dead, as if the mafia was a bunch of unruly kids, and nothing 'really' ever happened. Well, it all might be good in today's politically correct environment where all is forgotten and forgiven, but as I said at the beginning of this review, I beg to disagree...

This is a surprisingly refreshing movie, which actually feels more like a documentary than a fictional movie. This is the story of Arturo, who was born and bred in Palermo in the 1970s and who lived through the Mafia assassinations of judges, policemen and politicians. Pif has managed to direct a very original film and found a funny way of telling a tragic story in a way that turns a documentary about Mafia killings into a heartwarming love story. Turning Alberto into a child journalist is funny and original way of telling the history of the struggle between the Mafia and the authorities in the bloody period, and the idea of turning tragic events into comedy was perhaps borrowed from "Life is Beautiful". Although not as good as the latter, I found this happy ending movie to be very entertaining and strongly recommend it.

This Italian film is actually a bit of a comedy despite it being about the Mafia, or the Cosa Nostra or whatever you want to call them. Arturo is a native of Palermo where he learns early on that nothing is ever what it seems to be in Sicily. He learns too that many things can get you killed and so goes out of his way to avoid trouble.Then he meets and falls for Flora and his whole life changes - except his seeming adoration of premier Giulio Andreotti. We follow him as he grows up on the troubled streets of Palermo where the increasing violence of the Mafia finally makes the people react and say they have had enough. This is all set against the ongoing attempts by Arturo to get the attention of Flora.This is one of those films that manages to put a great big smile on your face whilst at the same time teaching you a bit about Sicilian political history. The actors are all great and Arturo as a child is played by Alex Bisconti who was a delight and as an adult by Pif who combined charm with vulnerability perfectly. I absolutely loved this and my version came with the option for English sub titles. It does the deal with the murders and assassinations so is far from being a full on comedy. It was though an absolute corker that should get wider distribution so more people can appreciate this Italian gem.

Pierfranceso di Liberto (in arte Pif) has pulled off a remarkable achievement with this film. It centers on Arturo, a middle-class boy living in Palermo in the 1970s-1980s who gradually comes to awareness of the murderous evil of La Cosa Nostra. His dawning awareness, and his moral awakening, parallel that of his city, whose residents would have preferred to have ignored the cancerous presence of the Mafia, but the brazen murders of so many of the Mafia's opponents -- honest politicians, magistrates, journalists -- forced them to confront it. That, and the amazing victories of the magistrates Falcone and Borsellino in prosecuting these monsters; tragically, they were both murdered shortly after the obtained convictions of some 300 criminals. Diliberto's protagonist Arturo initially is fascinated both by the mobbed-up premier Giulio Andreotti, and believes Andreotti's -- and his parents' lies about the mafia not existing in Sicily. (Andreotti, the protector of mafiosi, liked to say that the problem of organized crime existed only in Campania and Calabria.) The film's tonal balance is remarkable; at times it is hilariously funny; at others, heartbreaking. As the mafia crimes escalate, one feels despair, but at the film's marvelous conclusion, hope is restored. La mafia uccide solo in estate is without doubt one of the best films ever made about the scourge of Cosa Nostra.