Dimenticare Palermo (Francesco Rosi, 1990)

To be fair, the presence of James Belushi in a 'serious role' should really ring enough alarm bells, nor should having arch-pontificator Gore Vidal as co-writer be that reassuring. Belushi plays an Italian-American running for Mayor of New York who falls foul of the Sicilian Mafia through his intention to legalise drugs. The first half of the film plays out just as a protracted travelogue of Sicily, and while the director clearly has Hitchcockian aspirations, these are somewhat hampered by using Hitch's clumsiest film, The Man Who Knew Too Much, as the stylistic template, only with far less competent or likable actors. An attempt at the end to paste a preachy political message over the preceding hotch-potch of loose ends fails to imbue the exercise with much more purpose.

3/10