I don't see how you could categorize this film as other than a comedy for adults. That is what it is... tragedy as other reviewers suggest now that is funny...The first part has fun at the expense of Sicilian stereotypes: peasant women with mustaches... toothless old men fighting with knives and food and more food. The part in New York is even more hilarious with the mafioso speaking Italian with an American accent... All the stereotypes present and subtle humor every where.This film is meticulous hangs together well. Best of Italian comedy.A "dark" comedy for adults. Where did they run down all the Sicilian non actors?

A factory efficiency expert decides to take his family on a nostalgic vacation to the small town in Sicily where he grew up. Big mistake. He quickly becomes embroiled with the local Mafia, who see him as the perfect candidate to take care of a little job for them in America. Long before THE GODFATHER or THE SOPRANOS, Alberto Lattuada made this tragicomedy about Mob life. Between this and SEDUCED AND ABANDONED, one gets the impression that Sicily in the early sixties was an outer circle in Dante's Inferno. Shot in glorious black and white on location. A forgotten gem, recently restored. Note to foodies: there are several terrific meals in this movie. You may not live long in the Mafia, but you'll dine well.

How wonderful it is to start the year and to know that you have possibly already found what is going to be your favorite movie of the year: MAFIOSO is that movie!I had never seen the film and never seen much of director's LAttuada's work either. I am Italian yet in Italy LAttuada is not really considered as one of the great directors...well it is about time this changed. We have to thank the folks at Rialto Pictures (who id re-releasing the film in the US) for rediscovering this great talent. I wish they started rediscovering him also in Italy...well, too often a country doesn't appreciate its talents! Anyway...LAttuada directs with a great sense of storytelling, every shot has its reason to be and is there to bring the story forward. His capacity of being in control and keeping all the aspects of the film together is exemplary: The cinematography is incredible, manages at the same time to create a mood and to be absolutely concentrated in serving the script. The way the film uses its musical score is super modern (I would like to mention the genius score by Piero Piccioni) The editing is exceptional, never a flaw, never a scene that lasts too log or too little. The overall feeling at the end is that of a perfectly cohesive film. And one that makes you think too...and think a lot!I am not a big mafia movie fan, but this one is different from any other I have ever seen, has a way of turning comedy into tragedy and tragedy into comedy that I have not seen too often on the screen.Alberto Sordi is one of the best actors Italy has ever had: please go and discover his talent and his genius. I say MAfioso is well worth your time, if you don't go and see it it is your big loss!

(Contains spoilers!) "Mafioso" may be one of the finest Italian movies of the 1960s, ultimately to rank up there, in my opinion, with treasures such as Antonioni's "L'Avventura," Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" and "8 1/2," Visconti's "The Leopard," Germi's "Seduced and Abandoned," Pasolini's "Accattone" and "Mamma Roma," Olmi's "Il Posto" and "I Fidanzati," Risi's "Il Sorpasso", Bolognini's "Senilità" and "La Viaccia," Bellocchio's "Fists in the Pocket," Bertolucci's "Before the Revolution," Rosi's "Salvatore Giuliano." The name of director Alberto Lattuda is not as well known, but he has made some remarkable films, among which are "Italiani Brava Gente" and "Mill on the Po." In "Mafioso," Alberto Sordi gives one of his finest performances as a loving family man, Antonio Badalamenti, born and raised in Sicily, now living in Milan with a wife and two little daughters. He is a foreman in a factory there and honest, decent, and fair to a fault. He takes his wife and children to his native Calenzano in Sicily to meet the family they have never seen and with great pride shows them the wonders of his this region, the friendly people, the good bountiful food, the ancient traditions.Then a darker reality intervenes and turns the human comedy into a stark moral dilemma with tragic implications. It is in the form of Don Vincenzo, the local don, who may have been instrumental in obtaining the cushy Milan job for Antonio. Antonio had been asked by his Milan superior to consign a packet to him. Antonio is the messenger boy. Now it is payback time. Don Vincenzo wants a favor from Antonio, one that involves a secret mission to New York and New Jersey to act as a hit-man for the mob for one small job. It is to murder a troublesome rival gang member.Antonio can refuse. No overt threats are made. He is, after all, loved and admired by Don Vincenzo and the other friends and family of the village. But the implications should he refuse are dark and sinister. His own family and the lives of his children might be at stake. In this kind of moral dilemma, how far will a good man go to save and protect his family? The crate that will secretly fly him to America for the short mission is a symbol of the moral enclosure and claustrophobic fear that now threatens him. His wife all the while thinks he is off on a local hunting trip, and indeed, he returns with some killed rabbits. The organization has planned everything perfectly. But Antonio, now safe, now happy for the safety of his family, will live as an altered man, harboring a horrible secret he can never share with those he loves or with anyone. Back at the Milan factory he returns a pen borrowed from a worker and inadvertently not returned. He's that honest.This is the theme of the film and it is given vivid life in the details, for it is a movie replete with beautiful details. For example, Antonio's wife is a liberated woman who smokes in a society that still forbids it among women. She appears to be radical and aloof, but she is just uneasy in what is for her an alien culture. And yet she wins the hearts of her relatives through some simple gestures of good will, such as in helping a woman with a bit of hair removal to make her look prettier. There is a nice beach scene where the male locals ogle the women in a kind of pent-up libido. And I love those Sicilian male caps which everyone wears and which Antonio wears again too, symbolizing his becoming a Sicilian again. We view a society that to a great extent values conformity and mistrusts all outsiders, where "honor" surpasses every consideration (as in Germi's "Seduced and Abandoned") and where one cannot make choices based merely on intrinsic merit or on what seems to be the right thing to do.Alberto Sordi, arguably one of Italy's two or three greatest actors of all time, gives a performance that is mesmerizing and on key at all times. It is nothing short of brilliant. His is a bizarre yet believable journey through comedy and joy that comes in touch with genuine fear and terror.It is a shame that this film has not been commercially available or widely seen in the United States since it opened in 1964 (except at a few Sordi and Commedia'all'Italiana retrospectives) and has not been widely available on video or DVD outside of Italy. That failing seems about to be remedied.After a New York Film Festival retrospective showing, it will be re-released commercially and later make its way to DVD for American film enthusiasts to see once again or for the first time. They will have a great deal to look forward to.