In the Italian actioner My Name is Vendetta (Netflix), a gruff but loving father must confront the evils of his secret past if his daughter is to have a chance at living. This is close to the bone stuff, with dad and child dancing close to death at every turn, the bulk of it occurring in the nighttime murk of Milan’s more unfashionable corners. So early on in Vendetta, be sure to savor totally fantastic mountain views and pristine forests of Italy’s northernmost reaches while you still can.
MY NAME IS VENDETTA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: “Before I met your mom, I had a different life. I was another person. Not a good kind of person. Do you know what ‘Ndrangheta is?” Santo (Alessandro Gassmann) and his determined teenaged daughter Sofia (Ginevra Francesconi) are having this terse conversation in an abandoned hotel near their farmstead in the South Tyrol region of northern Italy. Santo has supplies stashed there, like an extra car, burner phones, and passports. For better or worse, it’s also where he stashed his previous life as a mafia enforcer named Domenico Franze, and things are definitely worse now that he and Sofia are on the run. It’s a lot for her to take in, considering the shocking tragedy that’s befallen them. But despite it all, Santo seems to understand that his daughter has the capacity to recover. He knows how tough she is on the ice with her hockey club. And they share an affinity for the kill or be killed mentality of Buck in Jack London’s Call of the Wild.
Before long, dad and daughter are driving to Milan. They’ve already fended off attacks from assorted henchmen, and Santo knows the gun-toting goons won’t stop coming. His assumed name, the new life he crafted in the north – it was all to escape Don Angelo (Remo Girone), who’s been searching for Santo for 20 years. At his mansion, the aging and sickly mafioso huddles with his remaining son Michele (Alessio Pratico), the family’s uptight financial whiz who doesn’t want to jeopardize everything the organization has built just for revenge. Angelo is disgusted. Sure, he wants Santo dead. But he also respects him. “He’s not a man who runs. He’s a man of honor. And every time I look at you I think Franze got the wrong son.”
You can see where this is going. As Santo/Franze teaches Sofia how to hotwire vehicles, build IEDs, and handle herself in a knife fight – “This is a lesson I wish I didn’t have to teach you,” he says, but you get the sense he’s proud of her aptitude – Don Angelo’s ‘Ndrangheta foot soldiers close in on their position with the help of sleazy security official Ferrario (Gabriele Falsetta). Will the vendetta end tonight? Or is there another chapter?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? In the 2020 Italian film The Beast, a distraught and unbalanced military vet goes one-man-army on the drug-dealing mafia gang who kidnapped his daughter. There are also some parallels between Alessandro Gassmann’s work in My Name is Vendetta and that of Sami Bouagila, recently of the French limited series Ganglands as well as the film Earth & Blood.
Performance Worth Watching: Alessandro Gassmann generates a lot of gravity here as Santo/Franze. His stern countenance as both a loving father to Sofia and worst nightmare for a host of ‘Ndrangheta gunmen often brings to mind Benicio del Toro.
Memorable Dialogue: “The last face they see won’t be that of their loved ones, but yours. The cruelest revenge.” Of all the knowledge her dad imparts in her training, this is the one Sofia takes most to heart.
Sex and Skin: Michele is entertaining a few sex workers in his office at one point, but beyond that, niente.
Our Take: Yes, lumberjack dad Santo is the former Franze, the ruthless mafia killer who always knew his day of reckoning would come. But from the second it arrives, it also very much feels like he’s long been prepared to make all of this violence a teaching moment for his beloved daughter Sofia. Of course he would have preferred to watch her hockey club win the playoffs, and to continue educating her on the ins and outs of navigating a vintage Land Rover through the forests and rivers of South Tyrol. But you can never stop what’s coming, and now that it’s here, Santo and Sofia are soon in silent agreement over what they’ll have to do together. “If someone attacks you, make the first move,” he tells her, and once dad and daughter must team up to take out a mob thug, they’re locked in a silent covenant. Santo’s secret past has become their collective and bloody present, and Sofia’s here for it.
In this way, My Name is Vendetta becomes a kind of coming-of-age story for Sofia, who newcomer Ginevra Francesconi plays with an intriguing, evolving mix of sadness, anger, and impelled resignation. As she begins to understand the unscrupulous, unchanging nature of the ‘Ndrangheta, it actually makes Sofia love her father more, and inspires her to stand against everyone he couldn’t. By the end of Vendetta, the question you might find yourself asking is who will have one in the sequel.
Our Call: STREAM IT. My Name is Vendetta wastes no time launching its intrepid dad and daughter duo against those who would wish them dead, which is something these arrogant mafia types should have considered before they agitated their former enforcer and his unlikely pupil.
Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges
