Special Features: Handsome (1983)

hyped garbage

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Forty-something Mattia (Adriano Celentano) has every woman in town lusting after him. This starts during the opening credits and last the whole movie long, (except when he puts on a disguise, of course). Every time a woman wants to get hitched, he drags out his 'daughter' (actually the girl next door) to pass judgment on them. Needles to say, none of the ladies meet her requirements. But now this advertising student, Michela, is about to turn 18 and her feelings for 'daddy' are drifting dangerously into taboo territory. Mattia does not notice, but then this guy emotes less than a Golem made of stone. I think he only smiled once in the entire picture, and that was when he was pretending to be someone else.Mattia is actually confessing everything to a priest. As he obviously enjoys bragging about his conquests to this poor clergyman, they go jogging and cycling while he rambles on. This framework is simply an excuse to put in a couple of cookie Tex Avery gags in some of the romantic episodes (since we are seeing it the way Mattia recalls it) . The most amusing of these is his affair with Rosala the clothes store owner and her jealous Pygmy husband. Less well rounded are his flings with Gloria the American reporter and an ebony lady. The latter features the most politically incorrect imitation of a coloured man since Gene Wilder in Silver Streak. Michela remains the only interesting female in the picture, but only just. Daddy dearest helps her to cheat during a geography exam with the use of a typewriter and a role of toilet paper. Notice that none of her classmates fall for him (probably still under age).That Adriano Celentano sure likes to show off his chest. Nearly every outfit he wears is cut like Montalban in The wrath of Kahn. I don't recall anybody actually walking around like that in the early eighties. Anyway, our worst fears have come true: barely legal Michela really wants to sleep with the man everybody thinks is her father. Sure she has a nerdy love interest of her own called Claudio, but she prefers some of those Celntano pecks. They go for a pointless trip to Milano to have a serious father-daughter discussion (via walkie talky). Michela then decides it's time for some wrath and gives Mattia's latest lover her blessing. So now he has to tie the knot with this blonde with a cleaning fixation and we can finally say goodbye to all of these flashbacks. Time for a 'shocking' grand finale that left me as cold as Celentano.4 out of 10