Il Divo

An intensely political film so wildly inventive and witty that it will become a touchstone for years to come, Il Divo is a masterpiece for maverick helmer-scribe Paolo Sorrentino.

The frequently outrageous Il Divo follows the career of one of the best-known and most tenacious figures in Italian political history in a lively, sensory-overload, cartoonlike fashion reminiscent of "Amelie" and "Moulin Rouge." The fact that it's often over-the-top goes with saying, and is part of the fun.

The film proceeds like a black comedy version of "The Godfather," crossed with Oliver Stone’s "Nixon."

Consume with great caution, and with joy.

Instead of a modern classic, able to travel the globe with ease, Il Divo is merely a wonderfully cast, tonally assured achievement, with a uniquely strange tour de force at its core.

Il Divo is showboat moviemaking, but the opulence is of a piece with the film's damning assessment of the durable Italian elder statesman Giulio Andreotti.

Through Sorrentino's lens, Andreotti's chief lieutenants are made to look like Reservoir Dogs, with Andreotti as a calm, tight-lipped, upper-crust analog to Lawrence Tierney.