The mission of the Manetti Bros. has always been to reinvent the Italian cinema genre. Among the few directors of their generation who are unashamed of making popular cinema, their way of understanding it is unique, not least because the strength of their cinema lies precisely in the mixing of genres.

Ammore e malavita is probably the ultimate example of these poetics. A musical full of original and reinvented songs, yet retaining all the pace and rhythm of a crime thriller with the irony and sentiment of a romantic comedy. Ammore e malavita has it all. 

Ciro, a Neapolitan underworld gun for hire, is assigned to kill Fatima, a girl who "knew too much, by being at the wrong place at the wrong time." When the two come face to face, their adolescent love comes flashing back, one that never subsided, and from that point on, it’s them against the world. 

With Ammore e malavita, the Manetti Bros. return to the scene of the crime: the Naples that served as the backdrop for Song'e Napule. And with the same light-hearted spirit, they manage to make an extremely fresh, mature and surprising work.

–  Manlio Gomarasca