The Sicilian

1987 "In Sicily, you stand by the law or by the Mafia. Only one man ever dared to stand alone."
5.4| 1h56m| R| en| More Info
Released: 23 October 1987 Released
Producted By: 20th Century Fox
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Egocentric bandit Salvatore Giuliano fights the Church, the Mafia, and the landed gentry while leading a populist movement for Sicilian independence.

Genre

Drama, Thriller, Crime

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The Sicilian (1987) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Michael Cimino

Production Companies

20th Century Fox

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The Sicilian Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
ruffwarrior If, like me, you are attempting to get the great satisfaction that gave reading "The Sicilian", by Mario Puzo, watching this movie you will be highly disappointed. It has virtually nothing to do with the book, although it claims to be based on the novel. No character corresponds to the age, temper or intelligence attributed to them on the novel. It's clear a movie cannot recreate a book completely, but this one goes the extra mile and butchers it without mercy. Spoiler alert: it leaves out important relationships like Giuliano's with his mother and La Venera and makes up another with the Contessa. All the human, great stuff of the book is left out. This movie is just terrible.
simonsayz-1 Cimno obviously hadn't learned from "Heaven's Gate", which isn't the disaster it's made out to be, just too long and too caught up in its subplots. "The Sicilian" copies the mistakes, but this time around it doesn't even have the beauty or breath of "Heaven's Gate". Nor its good actors. Christopher Lambert is a disaster in the title role. He tries to get by on his good looks and roguish twinkle in the eye, but his charisma is non-existent and it's hard to believe him as a folk hero who can move the masses. Helena Sukova is also a disappointment. Terrence Stamp's performance is hard to measure fairly, due to a poor dubbing job inflicted on him in post production. Only John Torturro as his usual nervous self is worth the money, as is Joss Ackland as the don of dons in Sicily.Apart from the acting problems, this film is also spectacularly dull. Cimino stretches a repetitious, drawn-out story over almost two and a half hours, when 90 minutes and some judicious editing would have served him better here. Because things shuffle on at a snail's pace and many scenes seem completely superfluous (also known as the "Heaven's Gate" syndrome), the viewer quickly loses interest. Which in turn is a problem with this densely plotted and at times confusing film. There are so many betrayals, broken deals and secret alliances, that at some point the viewer is bound to be confused, especially if he's trying to keep up interest in a movie that doesn't deserve it. Seriously, give "Heaven's Gate" a try instead of this. You might lose an additional hour of your life, but you'll be awarded with a flawed epic instead of this epic failure.
mjsprech The European-release version of "The Sicilian" is 31 minutes longer than the US version. Supposedly, the director was ordered to deliver a version under 2 hours, so he recut the film to render it incoherent with the expectation that Fox would have to release the complete film. Only, they went ahead and released the deliberately botched shorter cut. This may be apocryphal, but it would help explain the critical drubbing it got in this country. I was lucky enough to see the complete film in Paris and was mesmerized. Gore Vidal was denied credit for the screenplay, but the film has a literacy, intellectual depth and acidity that is pure Vidal; the character played by Terrance Stamp is essentially Vidal's stand-in. The only comparable film might be "The Godfather," but with an even stronger historic/political context. It is certainly the highpoint of Michael Cimino's career to date, and I'm one of those odd ducks that fervently admires "Heaven's Gate". If you can see this in Europe, or if it comes out over there on DVD and you have a region-appropriate DVD player, grab the opportunity to see it.
iunicorn Cimino is one of the very rare species on earth that can create a "MOOD' that leads to the very cradle of western civilization. The Roman Empire. As a foreigner who has lived in an Italian town for a year, I come to see that the colossal heart of every Italian man can only be captured with its gist by Cimino. And no other up till date. It comes from lighting, its shadow, its colours, its smell even on screen, its silhouettes, its accents, its breathing space, and his very own colossal heart that can contain it all. You do feel that he has achieved that sacred task in showing us THE SICILIAN. Nobody has that feeling ever been captured with rapture that its texture is almost noble, royal, yet sacred. But in its careful craftsmanship of Cimino, you find it everywhere, and it is just everywhere that overflows: its costumes, its lighting, its camerawork, its juxtaposition, its projections, so on and so forth. Its tempo of the film makes you flow like a river that breeds lives and cultures at the very same time.