A fire rages to the east of Rome as corrupt law enforcement and gangsters with unfinished business come to a head in Stefano Sollima’s twisting, contemporary crime drama Adagio. Through a somewhat monotonous tone and underdeveloped tough guys pursuing each other, comes a unique father-son dynamic and a compelling, scarred vision of Rome. 

The teenage Manuel (Gianmarco Franchini), in an arrangement to have charges dropped against him, is sent by Vasco (Adriano Giannini), a police officer, to procure incriminating evidence for a bigger fish: a government official at the center of a drug and prostitution ring. Manuel realizes he’s being filmed and bails, setting him on the run, again, from the cops. He seeks refuge with his father’s former colleague Cammello (Pierfrancesco Favino), who reluctantly takes him in despite having a score to settle with Manuel’s dad. In parallel, the police pursue Manuel, and leech onto his father (Toni Servillo) as a pawn to leverage against their target. The story continues through narrative twists as the pressure intensifies, heightened visually by the fire looming ever-closer.

A world without escape is conveyed both through the expository element of the fire raging on the edge of the city, as well as the cityscape of the southern Roman setting. Here, the ugly vision of Rome is a sea of crowded buildings, and a tangle of freeways intersecting together, like jail bars or ropes ensnaring the characters. As the police draw closer in, the inevitable collision is amplified through the constricting vision of overlapping roads and means of transit as both connectors, through their function, and suffocation, through their visual form.

Another interesting visual flair, as a foil to this theme, comes at a moment of brief reprieve: one character may have a way out, and the camera looks down at a car windshield, reflecting the sky above with ashes from the fire, who become instead birds flying overhead, away from the destruction. This visual breath of openness and possibility feels like liberation compared to the burden of the cityscape and interweaving roads.

The visual through-line and twisty narrative keep the movie experience compelling, though the somewhat uninteresting characters don’t draw one into the story. Their demeanors are all the same – cold, tough, and humorless. The men of this film – and it’s basically all men – could blend together in terms of personality traits, and it’s only their expository places that make any real distinction. The actors do decently with what they’re given – and lean into the plot surprises well – but it feels a somewhat by-the-numbers crime drama, of justice and redemption.

Where Adagio stands out is its interesting approach to multiple generations: an elderly former gang member whose son Manuel is ashamed for what he’s become, trying to shield his father from the truth. In parallel, on the other side of the law, are the police officer Vasco and his sons, fairly everyday-seeming kids of a man in law enforcement. Neither family situation has the typical burden or expectation of the son following his father’s footsteps, and in a standout moment towards the film’s conclusion, the sons from both sides cross paths in a poignant, almost haunting interaction.

Adagio largely feels like a standard gangster story, with predictable characters and overall feel, but its visual thematics and unique lens on what the next generation inherits, make this an interesting modern crime drama.