Film review: Angels of Evil

ANGELS OF EVIL (15) * * *

Italian director Michele Placido directs Kim Rossi Stuart in this biopic of notorious Italian criminal Renato Vallanzasca, who inevitably became a byword for criminal recklessness and bravado.

Thick with the details of murders, kidnappings and scores of armed robberies, it's a slick narrative bursting with charisma and bloody action. What it isn't, however, is terribly truthful.

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In Italy, this mythologising has upset Vallanzasca's victims, but if you treat this as an unreliable memoir you may enjoy it. Certainly the film benefits from co-writer Rossi Stuart's charismatic performance. However the essence of the man himself never comes into view.

From Friday to 2 June, Glasgow Film Theatre

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on May 22, 2011

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