Francesco Rosi's SALVATORE GIULIANO is the kind of movie that sounds better in theory than it plays on your screen. The film, a historical drama about a postwar Sicilian bandit (well, sorta - one could argue that it's really about corruption, and compromises that kill), eschews the tropes of filmed biography in favor of an oblique approach that makes Giuliano the un- or barely- seen axis about which the story turns. The film incorporates some elements of neorealism, using local amateurs for all but a couple of roles, and it's comfortable with letting time speak for itself.
Sounds interesting, right? Well, that's just the problem: the movie is ... interesting. Not gripping, not fascinating, just interesting. While viewing it, I enjoyed engaging with the movie, allowing it to take me on an intellectual journey; but it never got me in the gut. SALVATORE GIULIANO gives us no characters in whom we can invest, and it offers no real insights beyond the observation that people screw other people for their own ends. Ultimately, this film works more as an historical document than a complete cinematic experience. It was worth seeing, but it was worth seeing in an eat-your-vegetables kind of way.
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