The Mafia Only Kills In Summer juggles a love story and the Italian mafia crime scene

REVIEW: The Mafia Only Kills In Summer sometimes has trouble shifting gears between the lightness of its love story and the heavy nature of its crime scenes.

The Mafia Kills Only In Summer. Pic supplied

The Mafia Only Kills In Summer (M)

Director: Pif (feature debut)

Starring: Pif, Cristiana Capotondi, Ginerva Antona, Maurizio Marchetti.

Rating: ***

Love will find a way, or the Mob will make a hit

The director, co-writer, narrator and star of this unorthodox, yet crowd-pleasing Italian comedy is a gentleman popularly known in his homeland as Pif.

Until now a top-rating TV host (real name: Pierfrancesco Diliberto) you could liken to a lightweight Jon Stewart, Pif dips a toe in cinematic waters for the first time here.

Doesn’t do a bad job, either, particularly due to the entertaining, yet slightly dangerous subject matter handled here.

Pif’s principal focus is the mayhem generated by the Mafia in Sicily between 1970 and the late 1990s, as seen through the eyes of an aspiring Palermo journalist named Arturo.

Our idealistic hero (played by Pif and a younger actor, depending on the time frame depicted) is one of those hapless types who can’t help but find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If it wasn’t for a lifelong crush on the beautiful Flora (Cristiana Capotondi), Arturo would probably also find himself going the same way as so many prominent Sicilians he used to admire.

Used to admire? Well, let’s just say that if you were prominent in Sicily in this era, but in no way connected to the Mob, then you were virtually a dead man walking.

While The Mafia Only Kills In Summer sometimes has trouble shifting gears between the lightness of its central love story and the heavy nature of its crime scenes, it remains eminently watchable throughout.

Originally published as The Mafia Only Kills In Summer juggles a love story and the Italian mafia crime scene