Crime Story: great Italian Noir

Although the majority of crime fans are still stuck on the Scandanavians (who are generally still relying on Sjowall and Wahloo's Martin Beck novels for inspiration), it's Italian writers who are producing the best and most varied crime novels of the last ten years.

'Romanzo Criminale' (literally 'Crime Novel') is based on the bestselling book by an Italian judge called Giancarlo De Catalda). Frustratingly, it is yet to be translated into English (only his low key but great 'The Father and the Foreigner' has made it into our labnguage so far), but luckily the film is widely available.

It has lazily been compared to 'Goodfellas' but is not like the Scorcese classic in any way as far as style is concerned - yes, it's about a family of Italian crooks, but that's where the resemblance ends. 'Romanzo Criminale' is a lot less glamourised, mostly set in the 1970s and more realistic in tone.

The film features a great ensemble cast and holds the attention. I'm not going to drop any spoilers in here, just recommend that fans of dark crime novels and films watch it for themselves. It's a pity that so few of the recent examples of Italian Noir based on bestselling books are yet to be subtitled in English for DVD, so for the meantime, stick with this cracking feature.