Love and Bullets

"West Side Story" the recent gangster epic "Love and Bullets" is not. I'm a big fan of Giampaolo Morelli (Song of Napoli, Inspector Coliandro) so I recently viewed Love and Bullets on MHZ - a lengthy musical comedy set in Naples by the Manetti Brothers. I would have preferred a shorter action film without singing, as I found the first half of Love and Bullets garish to see and strident to hear (a marred, badly made-up corpse breaks out in song while inside his coffin) but, mid-point, once the plot is established and the hitman Ciro (Morelli) takes the lead away from his boss, the so-called Fish King, I was reminded of "Knight and Day" - a martial arts spy spoof I thoroughly enjoyed. Morelli as the unfortunate Ciro hasn't chosen murder - murder chose Ciro. Love and Bullets is about loyalty no matter the circumstances, lost love and misery despite stunning natural surroundings - the Bay of Naples. I think the music and some scenes such as that singer-in-the-coffin bit plus the busload of singing and dancing tourists could have been eliminated, with the focus trained on the action storyline. But who am I to argue with success? The Manetti Brothers were showered with Italian cinematic honors as a result of Love and Bullets.