What strikes us first about
Garrone’s latest is its setting,
one of those run down Roman
suburbs that hasn’t seen an influx
of tourists since the Americans
rolled through in ‘43. The layout
- blocks of crumbling apartments
forming a circle around a puddle-
ravaged square - evokes the ruins
of a coliseum, particularly in the
movie’s closing image, but the
cheering hordes are long absent.
The reigning champion gladia-
tor of this modern battleground is
Simone (Edoardo Pesce), a walk-
ing concrete block in a tracksuit
who rules the neighborhood with
an iron fist. Make that two iron
fists, great big banana bunches,
which he regularly uses to rear-
range the faces of the local busi-
ness owners he walks over.
Particularly under Simone’s
sizable thumb is Marcello
(Marcello Fonte), an affable
stick of a man who runs a small
dog grooming operation while
supplementing his income by
dealing cocaine. Simone has
gotten hooked on Marcello’s
Watch the trailer for Dogman
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 58
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