Ennio Fantastichini Movies

Not to be confused with Kiumars Poorahmad's 2007 Iranian feature of the same title, Davide Marengo's Italian-language crime comedy Night Bus (2007) concerns a microchip with potentially damning evidence against a Polish magnate. An ex-secret service agent, Carlo Matera (Ennio Fantastichini), receives an enormous sum of cash from the fellow to bring the chip home, but it falls into the mitts of a cutthroat nightclub owner, Andrea (Ivan Franek). He is hustled, in turn, by the femme fatale at the story's center, Leila (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). She walks off with the dough, and must subsequently evade a host of seedy goons and thugs all clamoring for the funds, meanwhile attempting to use a gullible, gambling-addicted bus driver, Franz (Valerio Mastandrea), for a convenient, cross-country getaway. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

While the major American TV networks were jockeying to be the first to present a filmed biography of the late Pope John Paul II, cable's humble Hallmark Channel managed to beat everyone to the punch with the four-hour Karol: A Man Who Became Pope. Actually, this made-for-TV film was a Polish-Italian co-production, debuting on Italian television as Karol, un Uomo Diventato Papa on April 8, 2005, and subsequently released theatrically in Poland. Curiously, it had been filmed in English, so no dubbing was necessary -- thus enabling Hallmark to rush the production onto American screens as early as August 15, 2005. Piotr Adamczyk stars as Karol Wojtyla, whose tireless fight for humanity and basic fundamental rights begins with the German invasion of his native Poland in 1939. Appalled at the brutal treatment afforded his Jewish friends, Karol turns to religion as a means of making a difference in the world, and with the help of several other like-minded individuals mounts a nonviolent, but extremely effective, anti-Nazi resistance. Ordained as a priest at war's end, Karol finds himself fighting another form of godless totalitarianism, this one from the Communists who have overtaken his country. Ultimately, Father Karol Wojtyla's noble mission culminates in his being elected as Pope John Paul II in 1978 -- and it was surely no coincidence that Poland's liberation was now but a matter of time. Although A Man Who Became Pope looks lavish and expensive, it was very economically produced, and had made back its cost many times over before its acquisition by Hallmark. The film is also a "winner" in terms of its straight-on portrayal of the pontiff, and the commendably sincere, unadorned performances of virtually every actor in the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in France, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Morocco, and Canada, this ambitious biographical TV miniseries chronicles the life and times of the "Little Corporal" from Corsica who managed to conquer nearly all of Europe within a period of a dozen years. The narrative begins in the mid-1790s, as Napoleon Bonaparte (played, curiously enough, by comic actor Christian Clavier) makes his mark on posterity with spectacular victories in Austria and Egypt. On the home front, Napoleon woos and wins the lovely (and considerably older) Josephine (Isabella Rossellini), but finds time for extracurricular romances with other women, notably Countess Marie Walewska (Alexandra Maria Lara). Ultimately, Bonaparte's ambitions destroy him, first in Russia, then at Waterloo, consigning the general-cum-emperor to live out his life in humiliation and exile. When originally broadcast in France in October 2002, Napoleon ran six hours (plus commercials), with four episodes. For its American presentation on the A&E cable network beginning April 8, 2003, the production was literally sliced in half, shown in two installments with a running time of three hours. What remained was all highlights and few insights, though a few brilliant moments remained, many of these supplied by the supporting cast, which included Gérard Depardieu (who also produced) as Fouche, and John Malkovich as Talleyrand. Thankfully, the full six-hour version was made available in the U.S. on DVD and VHS in 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Strained family ties add to the tension of a romantic triangle in this downbeat drama from Italy. Nina (Valeria Golino) is an emotionally unstable actress who can't figure out how to get her life in order and who frightens away almost any man who comes near her, including her former husband and her son. Clara (Margherita Buy) is a psychiatrist working in a mental hospital who has little going on in her life but her work. Nina and Clara have practically nothing in common except two things -- they're sisters, and both are in love with Leo (Ennio Fantastichini), an orderly at a hospital. Leo is fond of Nina, but when she leaves town without warning, he's upset at being unable to find her. Leo instead tracks down Clara, and she soon finds herself attracted to the warm, good-natured stranger. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Donatella Majorca directed this erotic computer drama starring Stefania Rocca, who's also in the cast of the 1997 futuristic computer film Nirvana. Viola (Rocca) compiles data and interviews on dreams, desires, sleep, and insomnia for a large research firm. Ending a ragged relationship, Viola browses the Internet and encounters a sex site where she meets Mittler (Ennio Fantastichini), who becomes her online lover. In erotic experiments, she masturbates to Mittler and becomes obsessed with him as he leads her into various sex games, activities which cause her to neglect her work. Mittler tells her to seduce laborer Lorenzo (Stefano Rota), who is doing maintenance work on her apartment. When Mittler learns that a genuine relationship has developed between Viola and Lorenzo, he becomes insanely jealous. Mittler's invasion of her private life leads her to track and confront him. Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This Italian crime drama, based on the book Io il Tebano (I, the Theban) by Antonio Carlucci and Paolo Rossetti, alters names in dramatizing the lives of real-life Milan gangsters. In prison in 1980, Michele Croce (Claudio Amendola) tells his story to an investigator as he looks back on his life, seen in flashbacks. Avoiding a regular job, the kid from Southern Italy teamed with his buddy Salvatore (Tony Sperandeo) to pull off small-time crimes, aggressively edging his way to the top of the heap as one of Milan's main gangsters. Independent Italian producer Claudio Bonivento turned to directing with this film. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Two disparate Italian families battle it out on a remote island during summer vacation in this barbed social comedy that sharply comments on the yawning chasm created by ideological and political differences between liberal-but-narrow-minded intellectual elitists and ultra-conservative, ignorant masses. The story's battleground is set upon the island of Ventotene and on either side are adjacent cabins. In one stays the intellectually arrogant Sandro Molino. He brings with him his girl friend Cecilia, her baby, and her father. Cecilia is constantly insecure about her relationship with Sandro while papa Mauro, a failed thespian, fights his ever-encroaching depression. The Molino camp and its many followers spend their days playing music, sipping wine, smoking hashish, grooving on nature and engaging in endless conversations until the prominent Roman gun merchant Ruggero Mazzalupi and his boisterous family show up and spoil everything. The riotous Mazzalupis are as vulgar as the Molinos are tragically hip. The real conflict begins when Sandro threatens to turn Ruggero in for abusing a Senegalese servant. Chaos between the clans erupt, but amidst the cafuffle, two teens still manage to fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Nastassja Kinski headlines this Italian romantic-tragedy which tells the story of a lonely man and a mysterious blonde amnesiac. The film is set in Milan. Tommaso has a slight physical disability and is very shy. One night upon returning home, he accidently hits a beautiful blonde woman who falls onto his doorstep with amnesia. At first Tommaso does not welcome her intrusion into his life, but then slowly, comes to love her. Unfortunately her memory returns and she returns to her previous life as the lover of Alberto, an aspiring major drug dealer. He is getting ready to field a major coke deal, but the blonde has other plans for Alberto. Tommaso pursues her and refuses to accept her rejection of him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This detective drama explores the labyrinthine byways of the Sicilian and Italian mind when confronted with ancient family secrets and treasures in the course of a murder investigation. In the story, an eminent diplomat returns unexpectedly to his remote villa near a small Sicilian town to hunt for some correspondence between his family members and the famous Italian historical figures, Pirandello and Garibaldi. While there, he calls the police, but before they can get around to seeing him, he has been killed. After that, every step they make towards solving his murder leads them deeper into complications. The two feuding policemen on the case (Ricky Tognazzi and Ennio Fantastichinni) are forced to call on a professor Gian Maria Volontè) for help in unraveling the tangled threads from the past which connect to the murder. This intricate whodunit is based on a celebrated novella by Leonardo Sciascia). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Set during the Mussolini years, Open Doors stars Gian Maria Volonte as an old-line judge. Volonte tries to remain faithful to the letter of the law, despite the "improvements" made by the Fascists. His insistence upon justice over dogma results in government reprimands, and ultimately poses a threat to Volonte's well-being. The honesty vs. corruption theme transcends the film's period settings, resulting in an allegorical masterpiece that has significance in any country, any time. Open Doors was a nominee for the "best foreign picture" Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This unusual biographical drama explores a period in the life of Nobel Prize-winning Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, (1901-1954) who contributed to the U.S.'s Manhattan Project (which developed the nuclear bomb) after developing the first working nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago in 1942. As a celebrated professor at Rome University in the 1930's Ferm (Ennio Fantastichini) attracted many brilliant students. One of them was the highly gifted and very unstable young mathematitian Ettore Maiorana (Andrea Prodan). Ettore, estranged from his abusive family, was more or less adopted by Fermi and his wife, until Fermi unwittingly betrayed him by admitting to Ettore's mother that he was staying with him. At that point, Ettore, whose mathematical skills far exceeded Fermi's and which had contributed to his development of nuclear physics, began his swift descent into some sort of paranoid state. He began camping out in his family's abandoned estate and eventually disappeared from sight. To this day, no one knows whether he killed himself, was murdered, or successfully changed identities. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This independent film noir by Paolo Bologna details the non-stop movement of one day in the life of a filmmaker as he struggles to fund his production -- with quite illicit means -- and demonstrates some bad temper with an underling and bad manners with others. The tricky juxtaposition of the filmmaker's editing of a chase scene and his own elusive dodging of pursuers provides a certain double-take on reality. The first-time director shows promise with this encouraging start to his career. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide