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Cesare (Luca Marinelli) and Vittorio (Alessando Borghi), two down on
their luck guys in their early twenties, have pretty much nothing apart
from one another - and so they roam the streets of their poor
neighbourhood, spending their days and especially nights getting drunk and
high and having meaningless sex on occasions, and making a few bucks to
support their lifestyle with petty crimes and pushing drugs. This all
changes when Vittorio meets and falls in love with Linda (Roberta Mattei),
who is more than receptive to his advances, but more than anything else
she needs a father figure for her son, so she makes Vittorio give up his
drug-induced lifestyle and get a regular job at a building site. Vittorio
sees this as a chance to save his life from the utter meaninglessness it
has been so far and tries to stick to the straight and narrow path (with
varying success), and even sort of likes it. However, trying to persuade
Cesare to make something of his life as well and join him doesn't go too
well, and once the one other person Cesare has always cared about, his
little niece (Alice Clementi), dies, Cesare gets totally off the rails and
onto a downward spiral ... True, the first few scenes of Don't
Be Bad are somewhat reminiscent of Trainspotting, if not in
style then in spirit at least (and perhaps fittingly then, Don't Be Bad
is also set in the 1990s), but it soon manages to develop an identity of
its own that is more reminiscent of classic Italian neorealismo than
stoner movies of more recent years and that really tells an engaging story
that has a "true" ring to it that's also mirrored in its
spectacle-free and yet very empathizing directorial effort, its deeply
flawed and yet likeable key characters, and of course its strong ensemble
cast. Totally worth a look!
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