Instant Favorite.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This film makes you wonder. The line between life and death is present throughout the film. Carelessness judge is not used to struggle - but his life becomes fatal. This film is about how much of the old is to die for a new beginning. People keep guns concealing the truth. People searching for the truth fall first. This film reviews the history as a priceless example. Murder is the easiest way. Death continues to bear fruit, and one proof means little for the truth. And the end of story will open your eyes. It's cinema style to reset a viewer for concentrating on the end. Every level of participating - is just a searching for a truth.

That's just a film and it is not serious. It is ranting and raving about the cold war and its consequences. It is an attempt to clean up the plate of the Red Brigades in Italy by making them CIA agents. It is an attempt to clean up their crimes by making these a result of Yalta and indispensable actions to prevent the arrival of the Communists in the Italian government. It is well done but it is gross manure. The assassination of Aldo Moro was the blocking element on the road to power for the Italian Communists, but that had nothing to do with the CIA and Yalta. It was essentially a successful attempt at preventing Communists from having any influence in the political world of Italy which would have isolated and even neutralized the Red Brigades and other Trotskyite groups. The presence of Communists in the French government in the 80s was of no importance because they were second to the Socialists and the Socialists had been vastly infiltrated by Trotskyites and the Socialists were going to eat up the Communists like so many snails cooked in some juicy red tomato sauce. Quite different was Italy since the Communists were going to be in the government with the Christian Democrats and as the main party in Italy, not a second declining force. The Trotskyites would have been completely neutralized and annihilated. Later on they will even practically cooperate with the extreme fascist right to eliminate the general secretary of the Communist party to get rid of the danger. For the Trotskyites, and for the Anarchists as well, and even for the extreme fascists, the world has to remain brutal, capitalistically egoistic so that these extreme forces can go on criticizing this world and appearing as justified in their criticism. Why do you think Mitterrand protected them and accepted them in France in order for them to escape Italian justice? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID

On March 16th 1978, Aldo Moro, Italian MP and president of the Christian Democrats Party (DC) is kidnapped by Brigate Rosse, a communist terrorist group. All members of his escort are killed. Aldo Moro was kept prisoner for 55 days before being killed and his body abandoned in a Red Renault 4 in via Caetani, in the centre of Rome, halfway between the DC's headquarter and the Communist Party's (PCI) headquarters. The official story is that the kidnap and the consequent murder has been a political act from Brigate Rosse.There have been several enquiries on the matter but to date there is no official and plausible truth. Everyone who has been in contact with this "matter" has been killed, some times through spectacular murders some other times through "accidents". The other people who posted a comment are right: this is a sort of Italian JFK. Unfortunately I am not sure that that is could have been a similar movie. Italy did not have a Jim Garrison who actually pursued the case. A couple of Parliamentary Investigations, a handful of court trials to the terrorists involved along with the official investigation but nothing that could be turned into another JFK. The movie is OK. Although I have to confess I was expecting something better. The actors are really good and the plot plausible. A judge (D. Sutherlnad) about to retire receive a mysterious super8 movie about the logistic of Aldo Moro's kidnap. The judge, along with a younger colleague (S. Rocca) and his bodyguard (G. Giannini), tried to find the answer to what really happened that day and who benefited from all that. The theories "thought" in this movie (the terrorists incongruent testimonial, the links to other excellent death…) can be found in the books written by Sergio Flamigni, one of the MP in the Parliamentary Commission created to investigate the matter. However I have the feeling that here the information is fed to the viewer without a logical sequence resulting a bit sketchy and possibly a bit difficult to follow for those who haven't got some knowledge of the facts. Aldo Moro's story has all the fact of a good thriller and conspiracy theory: CIA, Vatican, the Mossad, the Masonic element of P2 who controlled all operations during those 55 days, and a mafia involvement. It seems that everyone was actually interested not to let Aldo Moro to make a deal with the Communists in order to maintain a delicate political balance that could have change the European history. If you have some interest in Italian situation in the '70ies you might like the idea of the movie although it probably won't add any new element to your knowledge. If you don't, it still is a decent thriller, very well acted and directed although the end is of no surprise if you have a sharp eye.

On the eve of retirement a respected and fair minded honest judge is given a film of the murder of Aldo Moro. Troubled by what he sees and by strange events around him the judge begins to investigate what really happened to Moro.This is a well acted but run of the mill thriller. Donald Sutherland as the judge is good, as always, but he is given very little to do other than move from place to place to reveal the next plot point (in more than one sense). The problem is that unless you know what happened to Moro and what that meant for Italy you're going to be left out in the cold for a good chunk of this film. I'm not saying that you can't enjoy the film not knowing what happened, you can, its just that the deeper implications will be lost. I myself was lost, since the Moro murder was so long ago and effected me very little here in the US. I wish they had taken a page out of Oliver Stone's JFK and constructed the film in such away that it brought you into the story and the events in such away that you didn't know you were being spoon fed. There is no effort to tell you anything, it just throws you in. Its disappointing.This should have been a good thriller and instead its just okay. If Aldo Moro and his death are well known to you you then odds are you'll find this a better movie. If Moro means nothing to you this is just another political thriller based on real events saved by good performances.