Set in Rome, this film follows the stories of two men living in the suburbs. Enzo, the hero, reincarnates the classic criminal who has nothing worth to lose. His only satisfaction left, are his habits, which are pretty pathetic. Enzo doesn't care about anything, health, nutrition or social relationships. He doesn't even care much about money, as his profession would suggest. He is not the person that asks too much when he is offered a new job. Enzo seems comfortable with his loneliness. He is nothing you would expect a superhero to be like, even before owning superpowers.On the other side, Zingaro, the villain. He is not the classic megalomaniac and lunatic villain, who aims to own the world. Zingaro works with a few guys, looking for the upper step in the criminal context of Rome. As seen in many gangster movies, Zingaro plays the unofficial leader, who always tries to show his madness and pretends respect, sometimes in a pretty crazy way.The main difference between these two characters are their aspirations. While Enzo looks for a monotonous low-level criminal life to afford his pleasures: eating yogurt and watching porn movies, Zingaro looks for his position in the top gangsters of Rome.What excited me about this movie is the missing superhero-classic transformation of Enzo when he gains superpowers. While you would expect Enzo to become a people-caring superhero, he remains in his dark habitat and steals for him. In fact, the first thing he does when he figures out what he is capable of, is literally stealing an ATM. The only transformation is not caused by his superpowers, but by Alessia, a lunatic girl who lives in her fantastic world and has an enormous passion for the Japanese anime Steel Jeeg. Thanks to her, Enzo discovers the meaning of taking care of another person. He discovers love. Even if he know that Alessia has some mind-related problems, he doesn't feel any pity. When Alessia dies, he doesn't look for any revenge. Instead he tries to follow Alessia's dreams: being a superhero, just like Steel Jeeg. This will lead him to battle Zingaro, who earned the same superpowers Enzo owns. While Zingaro offers him a criminal partnership (something he have already seen in Spiderman - 2002), Enzo changed. He doesn't want to be a bad person anymore and fights Zingaro until the end.

An superhero iteration from Italian cinema, THEY CALL ME JEEG is director debut from Gabriele Mainetti. Our reluctant hero is a small-time criminal Enzo (Santamaria), who gains superhuman strength after falling into a barrel of radioactive waste in the Tiber river when chased by police in the snappy opening sequence. The story might be transposed to a new location, Rome's seedy outskirt where criminal act runs rampant, yet the narrative structure is more or less commonplace like its many a predecessor, Enzo must adhere to the same road-to-redemption drill to voluntarily take on his responsibility of helping those who are in extremis, although the first thing occurring to Enzo's mind is to rob an ATM machine once he has realized what he is capable of doing. (Btw, ATM machine will automatically deface the notes with ink once it is opened by force, everyday, you live and learn!)It is interesting to posit Enzo as a misanthropic deadbeat, feeding off from pornography and self- loathing, so he needs a conduit to lead him to wear that mask and cape, and here comes Alessia (Pastorelli, a screen debutante), the mentally impaired girl living downstairs with her father Sergio (Ambrogi), she is possessed with the popular Japanese manga STEEL JEEG and insists that Enzo is the incarnation of its hero Hiroshi Shiba. A dissonance occurs when we realize Enzo and Sergio are acquaintance-in-crimes, yet, the way the film introduces Enzo to Alessia gives us the impression that they just know each other for the first time. When Sergio is dispatched by a drug mule, the story predictably binds Enzo and Alessia together, and piles on woeful back-stories to the damsel- in-distress in order to attain sympathy, both from Enzo and audience,the result is 50/50. The problem is that Alessia, played with verve by Pastorelli nonetheless, vacillates in her personalities at the convenience of the plot, she appears to be obtuse enough to bury herself in her infantile fantasy (all she wants is a princess dress) so as not to question the fount of Enzo's superpower and just play along, in other occasions, lucid enough to invigorate Enzo's sense of justice and affection, not to mention gallantly stabbing her kidnapper at a critical moment. So what is the real deal of her? We would never get a full picture since she has one last mission to perform - a dramatic exit to kick-start our hero's conscience.The chief villain here is Zingaro aka. the Gypsy, a crazed psychopath play by Marinelli, the alumnus from Saverio Costanzo's THE SOLITUDE OF PRIME NUMBERS (2010), with unbridled bravado, to counter Enzo's more muted personality. Taking reference from today's spiked fame from YouTube and reality show, the Gypsy has a maniacal hunger for fame,and blatantly takes a leaf out of the Joker's book, the pomp of wanton volatility and cartoonish grandstanding is duly underlay, only to be undermined in the eleventh hour by the much hyped blast, betrays that the movie's budget runs out quickly. Also, it is hardly not to notice, theoretically, our hero's nemesis could fall upon the shoulders of the equally cold-blooded alpha gangster Nunzia (Truppo), but as often as not, there is still no room for women to break that glass ceiling as far as superhero fares are concerned. At any rate, THEY CALL ME JEEG is to say the least, a competent genre piece, might not be innovative as we wanted it to be, yet, it at least plays up the pipe dream from a worm's eye-view, an ordinary type who is endowed with something extraordinary, still gets a rueful sigh when he finds out the rehabilitation of a chopped pinkie toe is just his wishful thinking.

this is a slow, somewhat disjointed little number. it holds an enjoyable darkness that keeps you just out of your comfort zone.better subtitles would have helped along with less random plot lines, however there is a lot to make up for that, it is cleverly filmed and you are left with a feeling for a grimy cheap world of an Italian underclass.the psychopath is a delight and the random criminal activities lurched from surreal to weird without quite hitting the mainstream.I would recommend it of you are looking for something a little different from the usual mainstream pap.

Courageous debut for Mainetti, who has chosen a genre unfamiliar to Italian cinema. Due to budget limitations, focusing on characters and environment was the only route to take, and that was managed pretty well, adapting the classic superhero movies plot to Italy (specifically Rome) background: there aren't people who want to save or conquer the world, just people that struggle to go on living among criminals and Camorra bosses. Filthy Tevere river, filthy rooms and filthy souls. All the main characters live at the margin of society, a society that refuses them and doesn't give a chance to change their condition. Enzo is a low grade thief who has lost all hopes on society and on its own life, living day to day with no ambitions, eating yogurt and watching porn movies, and uses the superpowers casually granted to him just to repeat his habits over and over. Alessia is a girl with a mental disorder who escapes reality by continuously watching the Jeeg Robot anime and relating everything to it. Zingaro (the Gypsy) is trying to find his place on the world (Rome) by achieving fame, failing with usual ephemeral means through TV shows, and now trying to be the most known and feared criminal (again, in Rome). "Normal" people seem to live in another universe, behind a one way mirror: Enzo watches and despises them, while they pretend not to see him and , in general, the horrors of the world. This situation is interrupted only by terrorist attacks, that recall those that in Italy are called Years of Lead, and later by Enzo's switch towards "good". It's really amazing the constant tie to reality that the movie has, despite the superpowers: common streets, common people, common criminals and common situations (the first good action of Enzo is saving a little girl involved in a car accident). Good acting for the 3 main roles: Santamaria and Pastorelli (i was surprised by her, since she came from Italian Big Brother reality show, i had my doubts) did a great work, Marinelli shines in his villain role. Solid direction from Mainetti with a couple scenes i personally liked: Zingaro assault on Camorra clan and the scenes on Enzo's house where Jeeg was screened on the wall. Soundtrack consists mostly of years '80 Italian pop music, and i find it fitting. Script is where the movie has some weaknesses, the plot is too straightforward (but as i said before, that's most likely a choice), and the final confrontation didn't convince me. Interesting references to other movies, even Kill Bill, and of course the Jeeg anime. As a side note, since Mainetti knows well Japan animes as they inspired some of his previous works, i wonder if that's the same for Japanese new wave directors. I noticed some similarities with Sion Sono's themes: dysfunctional families, psychological and physical abuses, violence as a mean of self-awareness, technology amplifying or leading to delusions and solitude. If that's the case, that's for sure a great addition. Once, something considered impossible happened: Italy mastered and created his own Western genre, passing through Japan. I don't know if this will happen with superheroes, but this movie surely marks a good starting point.