True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

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

First a word of warning to Italian readers: "Africa begins south of Rome", goes an Old Italian saying – this is filmed in the borderland. So, the proud descendants of the Roman culture that they are, they won't like everything about this review.Rome: ancient cradle of European civilization, which gave us democracy and the alphabet. Rome: modern, buzzing metropolis, city of culture, style and fashion. In Ettore Scolas film we only get to see glimpses of those Romes, which loom far, far in the distance. Scolas Rome is the rotten tooth of a city that once was the heart of an empire. A corpse, so degenerated that only sheer tenacity and stubbornness keeps it alive.This film could have been shot in any slum in this world, be it in Rio de Janeiro, the trailer-towns of the Midwestern US or one of the gypsy encampments of Eastern Europe. But such an utterly black, cynical comedy like "Brutti, Sporchi e Cattvi" could probably only have been produced in Italy.In one dilapidated hut lives the Mazzatella clan: a sheer countless number of relatives, each poor, unemployed, unemployable and rotten to the very core. "Proud" head of the family is Giacinto (Nino Manfredi) who has one worry in the world: that his relatives would steal the million lire insurance money which he "earned" by loosing his left eye in a quicklime accident (we don't know how much a million lire was worth back then, but we presume at least a few hundred bucks).When Giacinto picks up corpulent drifter Iside, bringing her home into the family-bed, his clan decides to take more drastic measures, flavoring his macaroni with rat-poison. However, the one-eyed patriarch survives (with the aid of saltwater and a bicycle-pump) and shows his relations, who's on top of the familial food-chain.Director Scola wasn't lying when he promised to show us "the dirty, the ugly and the mean"; three terms which not only define Giacinto, his family and the squalor in which they gleefully live. At the same time, he shows us humans with whom we can instinctively relate to, not mere caricatures of the poor or corrupt. Scolas film is powerful, even important: it makes us laugh and at the same time, makes us wonder what we're laughing at.In that sense, films like Emir Kusturicas "Black Cat, White Cat" or Michael Raeburns "Triompf" probably own more to Scola than the average viewer might have realized.9/10

Nino Manfredi, only professional actor here, shines in this Ettore Scola movie as Giacinto Mazzarella, a former convict with a long series of crimes and a huge, quirky family. He's violent, vulgar, amoral; he lives surrounded by dirt, squalor and poverty. Yet, he's funny. This movie is too funny! Scola directs a group of actors headed by Manfredi, who shows off an irresistible accent, and by Maria Luisa Santella as Iside, Giacinto's mistress, a fat, sweet but silly woman with an "ancient name". But it isn't a carefree comedy: behind the quips and the jokes there's a grotesque depiction of a miserable reality not very far from San Pietro, the most important Catholic building in the world. Not a perfect film, but a very good one.

I would not call this a comedy. Maybe a tragicomedy. It is true, some scenes are funny. But that's not the point. The point is to give an hyper-realistic, painful portrait of extreme ignorance and poverty, and its consequences. These people cannot afford to be good, honest, or have any positive family feeling. Like prisoners in a Nazi camp, they are deprived of all their humanity. The only thing that keeps the family united is the shack they live in, and the idea of taking Giacinto's money. I want to stress the fact that the movie _is_ realistic. There _were_ shantytowns around Rome in the seventies. And the people _were_ like that. The constantly mocking and jocking attitude is a trait of the Roman popular culture. It does not mean they're happy and light-hearted. So beware, this movie won't just give you a good laugh. If you like it, check this out as well, I don't think you can buy it, but the Italian RAI TV showed it some time ago: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0073339/

Italy -1970s. A miserable house built in the poor suburbs of the city. The whole family lives there, and the only one who has money is the father, jealous and weary guardian of his treasure. No values, no morality other than envy and greed. No lost love either -the father lives in the constant fear of being robbed by his own children, until he falls in love with a stranger and imposes her in the over-crowded house, in his wife's very bed. A terrible, cruel picture of the life of the poor, who are refused here the most basic human dignity. Uncomfortable and unfair, this movie cannot been watched without revolt against the one-sided film maker who just painted the dark side of a more subtle reality. What exactly has Ettore Scola tried to achieve with such manicheism???