This is a collection of five stories about people who are touched by the gritty Neapolitan crime world. There is a gang war erupting. Don Ciro is a scared middleman. He is jumped by the other side and forced to take them back to his location. Roberto works in waste management and his boss Franco is dumping toxic wastes. Pasquale works as a high fashion tailor controlled by the mob. He moonlights for their Chinese competitor but it goes wrong. Marco and Ciro are young gangster wannabes. They get in over their heads.This is a great faux-realistic take on the modern mob. It opens with a bang. I will always remember the waste disposal because of the subject matter. The two youngsters are probably the most compelling characters. There are some ups and downs. It's a disjointed watch. It's a wide-ranging take on the subject and proves to be an effective one.

No matter how many mafia films you have seen, you have never seen anything like "Gomorrah." It is a desolate film--devoid of hope, and explores a brutally violent way of life without heroes, just victims. "Gomorrah" portrays an Italy so far removed from our picture post card images of a beautiful, crumbling grandeur that it's shocking and startling. This is a modern day Italy of chronic unemployment, decaying infrastructure, and social stagnation. Director Matteo Garrone's unflinching portrait of a very real hell on earth won the Grand Prix at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. This isn't some art house picture looking to score style points by subverting the gangster paradigm. "Gomorrah" takes on a hard-hitting documentary feel, providing a horrific glimpse of everyday life on the lawless streets of Napoli. Gomorrah is the name of a Biblical city synonymous with unremorseful sinners. The title of the Italian film "Gomorrah," is a chilling descriptor and play on words referring to the "Camorra"- a notorious, violent, organized crime syndicate that controls the city of Naples and surrounding countryside. Garrone introduces us to the typical daily life inside this criminal state—and a little known criminal organization to the Western world. The film is based on Roberto Saviano's 2006 best selling novel "Gomorrah," who personally documented his dangerous first-person journey, and to this very day lives under police protection. "Gomorrah" opens with a standard-issue mob hit and then, without ever pausing to explain, proceeds to map out the web of relations by which the Camorra ensnares its subjects and how it operates. Powerful crime bosses and crooked police officers are off-screen. Instead, we are introduced to the residents of Scampia--a notorious Neapolitan suburb that is a vast, disastrous structure of public housing. An ominous warren of concrete, steel piping, and oppressive apartment blocks, a setting every bit as menacing as Rio de Janeiro's 'Favela' in "City of God" (2001). Crime and poverty are rampant, drugs are sold and consumed openly in the streets, and is widely recognized as the world's largest open-air drug market. Director Matteo Garrone splinters the narrative, and then traces it along different commercial channels – an industrial waste disposal service, an illegal garment manufacturer, a construction company, and the relentless drug wars that play out in the streets. Poison is the lifeblood of what Saviano simply refers to as "The System"- crack cocaine, chemical waste, tainted money, and creeping corruption. The movie maintains an authentic feel of "street level occupation," and contains no musical score, which only adds to the desolate story line and landscape. Unlike so many of its ancestors, from "Scarface" (1983) to "Goodfellas" (1990), fast money, accumulating wealth, and achieving status is the driving motivation behind the criminal activity. "Gomorrah" is not a sensationalistic film, far from glamorous, and there is never any sense of riches to be had.It's a frightening and chilling experience to watch the reprehensible, ruthless violence perpetuate in the slums of Napoli's. We reach a point in the film when the criminal activity and bloodshed is no longer startling; and it simply becomes the immediacy and sudden violent disruption of every day life. Nothing sweet or serene in this movie stays that way for long. There is no Hollywood gloss, or international stars involved in telling this story. Just a hollow point shot of gritty realism that a bulletproof vest can't even stop.

The Godfather is the standard by which all Mafia movies are compared. No Marlon Brando to carry Gomorra, and so it turns out just another slightly better then average gangster film.The Gomorra is a clan within the traditional mob, based in southern Italy, and their reputation for brutality is legendary. It starts at a tanning salon with some bloody shootings, and escalates into a war between Mafia families, as is usually the case. The highlight for me was Marco and Ciro, two teenage boys who decide to run their own racket, without permission from the real guys. They quote lines from Scarface, each emulating Tony Montana. This turns out to be a big mistake, with tragic consequences. Gomorra is good, but it just does not measure up to Coppola's masterpiece of the genre, but the characters are interesting enough to recommend it

An inside look at slices of life you would other wise never know existed.This film details various activities of the mob in Naples. A lot of it is shot around a modern housing complex which has turned into a slum--the buildings are extremely modern and quite interesting looking but are run down low income housing.There are several subplots one concerns the mob disposing of toxic waste (a horrible idea forms in your mind of how much of this actually takes place).Another subplot--the best one--(I agree with other reviewers) is the tailor of a high line garment maker.This film jumps from subplot to subplot. In a couple of them towards the end I was lost and didn't know which subplot the scene belonged to.This film just introduces what the mob in Naples is like and as such should be viewed mostly as a documentary rather than a neatly structured story--even though it is apparently based on a novel.It was interesting ... 5 stars...