Matteo Garrone's corrosive, slapdash exposé of organized crime in and around Naples comes on like Mean Streets cubed. Many of Gomorrah's characters and situations are drawn from Roberto Saviano's impressive 2006 best-seller, but Garrone's movie is less an adaptation of the book than the successful decanting of its toxic fumes. Crime bosses and crooked pols are offscreen. Instead, we have the residents of a vast, moldering housing estate in Scampia, a Naples suburb honeycombed with lookouts, delivery boys, enforcers and gangster wannabes obsessed with American crime cinema. "It's not the movie world that scans the criminal world for the most interesting behavior," Saviano writes. "The exact opposite is true." Garrone has taken this to heart. Characterized by a total absence of anti-heroic glamour, his tough, unrelentingly squalid movie is unlikely to inspire much real-world imitation.
