Director Nanni Moretti’s bellyflop satire belatedly takes on former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi in a characteristically knockabout, roundabout manner. The film’s protagonist (Orlando) – a B-movie producer in a country where that still means something – is going bankrupt and separating from his wife when a young writer-director (Trinca) approaches him with a script that might just save his career.
Distracted and desperate, he’s already raising the necessary finances when he realises the entire screenplay is an attack on the Italian PM. Oops.
Schizophrenically skipping between low-rent grindhouse shoot-‘em-ups, family drama and political rants, The Caiman is an endearing, shouty gumbo even when the subplots don’t seem all that organic. The piece works best, however, when it gives Berlusconi all the rope he needs by showing archive material of the man himself. We’re told of all his dodgy deals and pomposity, but nothing shows him up as a guttersnipe quite like the footage of his concentration camp ‘joke’ delivered before the European parliament.
“We are the laughing stock of the world,” says a mortified Trinca. Happily, ‘The Caiman’, named here for a particularly nasty breed of alligator, was ousted in the election that came three weeks after Moretti’s film became a hit in its homeland. But reptiles everywhere may still wish to consult with their solicitors.