Il Sorpasso (1962)

This movie brings back justice and hope in Cinema on these years where it's living an identity crisis and is lack of ideas (not only in Italy): the directing is perfect, the actors perfect, the plot perfect (deeper than you could think at a first, superficial, glance) and so are the photography and the screenplay. And what to say about the soundtrack cured by another legend, Riz Ortolani? After having watched it for the umpteenth time, just half an hour ago, I felt spontaneously in need of expressing all my admiration about this undoubted masterpiece of all the world of Cinema.... What else? Nothing, I don't feel like anticipating only a single scene of this movie to whom hasn't watched it yet (how I envy you...): just relax and enjoy your vision until the end, because after that you'll be here adding another enthusiastic comment on it.... Last, sorry for my English but it wasn't possible to add a comment in Italian.....

Fmovies: Actually it was a Lancia Aurelia B24 sport....It was one of the three main characters in this movie, so please let there be no misunderstanding about this marvelous car. The car represents the somewhat broken state Bruno is in when Roberto meets him. The paintwork is patched-up and the body is dented, but the the engine, character and spirit are still in top condition! Please also note that all the in-car shots were made on the road and not in the studio. This movie depicts how Italy in the beginning of the sixties was recuperating from the poverty resulting from war and fascism.

(Great movie!!!)

Probably the best "costume satire" film ever made. Vittorio Gassman is perfect in the role of Bruno. Great cast especially the supporting role of J. L. Trintignant. Adorable and very sexy the beautiful teenager daughter of Bruno played by Catherine Spaak. Il Sorpasso depicted in great reality the sweet bitter life of the 60's in Italy. The perfect road movie, filled with deep characters and great locations between Rome (deserted during the peak summertime vacation of "ferragosto" and the overcrowded countryside of the coast between the Capital and the Tuscan Riviera). This film is filled with humor and sadness (If you don't understand Italian, you'll miss something but the movie language is international, and the subtitles will help you). DO NOT MISS IT! Bravo Dino Risi!

Il Sorpasso fmovies. Italian movies are all the same. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry. No thrills, you never really HANG to your seat. This is an example for what italian cinema was meant to be but never was. This was avant-garde, with powerful acting and a great script. This was universal cinema, while nowadays is all partisan movies and mafia movies and tragic movies, even the world famous benigni gives a poor image of the potentials of Italian cinema. This is one of the BIG movies from italy, and even if Risi filmography aint full of masterworks, this is a movie that can make his name a BIG name in Movies History. Gassman and Trintignant and even Catherine Spaak dominate the scene and the country roads of Lazio and Toscana play their part as well. The tragedy is way before the final, and is all found in the unsatisfying way of life both main carachters are living. Italian tragicomedy at its highest peak, no competition at all! 10 out of ten.

I've seen this movie hundreds & hundreds of time, and I'm not tired yet to watch it, and this just because this movie represents how we italians were in the sixties and how we still are. It is probably one of the ten best italian movies ever made. If you are able to understand Italian, watch it in its original version.

I will only say for now, this is one SERIOUSLY GREAT MOVIE. Dino Risi must have been going through a good period in his life because never before or since have movies under his care (as Director) come out this well.

The story of a middle aged playboy and his short-lived, would be, apprentice, a shy student ... Vittorio Gassman, Jean-Louis Trintignant, are brilliant and 17 year old Catherine Spaak turns in a mind-blowing performance, surely the best "teenage" performance, ever, (think the Breakfast Club X 100) setting a very high, difficult bar for herself in the process.

As the previous reviewer said, 10 out of 10; now if we can only get a real re-release, not a damn bootleg.

** You know you're watching a ground-breaking movie when a guy, the playboy protaganist, "exhuberant" throughout, suddenly gives the game away. It happens in a scene at a beach shower, where he is singing zestfully - "a man in love with life," and then suddenly stops altogether, the game up and shrugs his shoulder. I don't know such a thing had ever been tried before in all of Cinema. The stunning effect when Vittorio Gassman, as the playboy, drops the mask that all wear (in Italy, literally one's "second face") is overwhelming, like a pistol shot on a deserted street.

Groundbreaking in every way and not a little frightening, like a summer day suddenly ruined by an angry quarrel! (pick a metaphor). SEE IT!