The Monster (1994 film)

Il Mostro
film poster
Directed by	Roberto Benigni Yves Attal
Written by	Roberto Benigni Michel Blanc
Produced by	Roberto Benigni
Starring	Roberto Benigni Nicoletta Braschi Michel Blanc
Cinematography	Carlo Di Palma
Edited by	Nino Baragli Franco Fraticelli
Music by	Evan Lurie
Release dates	22 October 1994 19 April 1996
Running time	112 min
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Il Mostro (The Monster) is a 1994 Italian comedy film. It starred Roberto Benigni as a man who is mistaken by police profilers for a serial killer due to a misunderstanding of the man's strange behavior. The film is rated R by the MPAA "for language and some sexual humor."

Synopsis

Loris (Roberto Benigni) is a part-time mannequin handler for a department store. He hopes to learn the Chinese language in order to get an assistant manager position. He lives in a building where he hasn't paid the rent in months, and he also owes money to other people around town.

Because of his odd behavior, Loris becomes the chief suspect in a series of rape/murders. The chief of police, frustrated by the lack of solid evidence against Loris, resolves to provoke Loris's passion and catch him "red-handed." An attractive police officer, Jessica (Nicoletta Braschi) goes undercover as his roommate, and is directed by the police chief and the police doctor, Paride, to dress provocatively in order to entrap Loris.

File:Mostro obscenebombardment.png

Jessica is trying very hard to provoke Loris to try to commit a crime.

After a few days living in his apartment, Jessica begins to doubt Loris really is the killer. The police doctor, however, is convinced that Loris is on the brink of committing his 19th rape/murder. Paride visits Jessica's apartment on the pretext of fitting Loris for a suit. He performs all sorts of medical tests and Loris remains clueless, thinking he really is being fitted for a suit.

Loris goes to interview at the Chinese company. His teacher gives him a little Chinese good luck charm, and Jessica sees this. Loris bombs the interview, unable to answer the very first question correctly.

Jessica is about to give up on the case when Paride brings her a Little Red Riding Hood costume and says the police chief orders her to put it on. Paride is certain this will unleash Loris' "erotic urges." Jessica does as instructed but Loris remains unmoved to rape or murder anyone. Jessica is back at the police station when they get news that the serial killer has struck again. At the crime scene, Jessica finds the Chinese good luck charm and connects it to Loris' Chinese instructor. She goes to the Chinese language teacher's house, where she finds both Loris and the teacher. She instructs a uniformed police officer to release Loris, then she calmly directs the real killer to a squad car.

Critical reception

According to Rotten Tomatoes, this film gets a "rotten" 33% rating on the "critics' tomatometer." James Brundage at filmcritic.com writes of this film that "It's childish, it's fun, and you can get it without understanding a single word of Italian... well, maybe not the third part but you still don't have to use your brain all that much." [1]

File:Mostro withKnife.png

Loris approaches Paride's wife with knife in hand.

Chris Hicks of Deseret News was much less impressed by this film: "But after about an hour, Benigni and his film have worn out their welcome — and there's still almost an hour to go." He's surprised that "this movie was a monster hit — the biggest moneymaker in Italian movie history." [2]

External links

Il Mostro at IMDb