Fortapàsc / Fort Apache (2009)

Giancarlo Siani, a reporter for Il Mattino, is killed with ten pistol shots in 1985. An easygoing 26 year-old, he loves his life and his work. During the last four months of his life, he goes from his home in the Vomero neighborhood to the hell of Torre Annunziata, the kingdom of crime boss Valentino Gionta. Giancarlo is investigating corruption in earthquake reconstruction efforts. Amidst the mafia, corrupt politicians, frightened prosecutors and helpless policemen, he is like a lily in the mud.

Fortapasc is Neapolitan slang for Fort Apache, a name ruefully applied to Torre Annunziata, a small down-at-heel town near Naples which in the 80s was from top to bottom controlled, overtly and covertly, by the Camorra, and a constant battleground in their turf wars. Into this world came Giancarlo Siani, young newspaper stringer for the Naples paper Il Mondiale, seeking stories where he could, going to lengths no cynical hard-bitten journalist would to get at the truth. With his bright green golf-buggy type motor, his glasses and his joke-stickered old typewriter, he's an almost geeky, unlikely hero, but when he gets a whiff of multiple corruption in local government, law enforcement and industry, desire for justice and being a ‘journalist journalist' as opposed to those who just write what they know is safe, inevitably leads him into danger.

I saw this last month at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Coming on the heels of the recent book Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano that was made into a successful film here is another look at the Naples based urban mob with a long history in Italy, Camorra. Fortapàsq is Italian slang for an American phrase, Fort Apache, in it's meaning of under siege. Written by writer/director Marco Risi with Jim Carrington and Andrea Purgatori this is a true story based on investigative reporter Giancarlo Siani (Liberto De Rienzo), a young journalist who in 1985 digs too deep into the workings of the Camorra and its political ties. His reporting for a small local newspaper on the rival warfare of Camorra families leads to national recognition a a job for a big city newspaper. He continues his investigative series there and which leads him into real trouble. A good cast with great supporting roles from Ernesto Mahieux as Siani's friend and co-worker and Massimiliano as a Camorra mobster who has been selected to eventually become the mobs main Don. This is a good film for a general audience as it plays kind of like a made-for TV movie but I would recommend it

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