‘The Last Night Of Amore’: Berlin Review

Dir/scr: Andrea Di Stefano. Italy. 2023. 124mins

Channelling the tough Milanese spirit of Ferdinando di Leo – the ‘poliziesco’ director of the 1960s and 1970s who was rescued from obscurity by Quentin Tarantino – but adding the urban sheen and emotional heft of a Michael Mann or Johnnie To, writer-director Andrea Di Stefano crafts a tense yet also rather moving thriller-melodrama out of the most cliched premise: a cop who is talked into running a favour for a gangland boss on his last night before retiring. It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a stylish Italian crime thriller.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a stylish Italian crime thriller.

Formerly known for his acting roles, Di Stefano first turned to directing with 2014’s Escobar: Paradise Lost, starring Benicio del Toro, before going on to direct 2019 British crime thriller The Informer. The Last Night of Amore is his first film shot on home ground, but he brings to the project a genre sensibility that is more Hollywood than Cinecittà. Though it’s mostly a late-night pleaser for immediate consumption, a few things linger – like the performance of Pierfrancesco Favino (Nostalgia, The Traitor), an increasingly recognisable leading man even outside of Italy, who brings a tender fatalism to the film’s central role.

With international rights held by Universal and theatrical distribution already in place for Italy (via Vision) and Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Square One), this Italian-language film could, paradoxically, turn out to be more of a hit for di Stefano than his previous English-language directorial outings. A neat package that includes photography courtesy of Guido Michelotti, who also worked on TV series Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero, and a smoky, jazzy soundtrack by Santi Pulvirenti, it could also find itself a cosy streamer berth after its theatrical run.

Favino’s character Franco Amore is a Milanese policeman on his last night in the job after a 35-year career. Amore, of course, means ‘Love’ – hence the title, which works better as a ‘last night of love/last night of Mr Love’ double entendre in Italian. The opening credit sequence sets the scene neatly, with the camera gliding over the high-rises, church domes and factories of Franco’s beat – the gridplan metropolis that is the business and commercial heart of northern Italy – before descending to peer through the window of the apartment he shares with his vivacious partner Viviana (Linda Caridi). She’s throwing a surprise party for Franco, a cop who is famous for having kept his nose clean and never fired a shot, one who seems to be well-liked and respected by all.

The Last Night Of Amore presents Franco as something of a relic, an honourable but rather naïve old-school cop who, fuelled by resentment at his meagre pay and failure to be promoted, is persuaded to cross an ethical line on his very last night of service and take on a well-paid moonlighting job for the head of a powerful Chinese-Italian business empire – or is it a crime syndicate?

If the film rises above its pre-loved premise, it’s largely because of the way Di Stefano juggles suspense – as Franco and later Viviana become hunted targets – with a human drama based on the ties that bind people together. Franco’s lowly rank after a lifetime of service is revealed to be due at least partly to his wife’s dubious Calabrian relatives – like Cosimo (Antonio Gerardi), a jovial jeweller whose small-time scams selling Rolexes to Serie A footballers are shown to be the tip of an iceberg.

Overlapping with these family ties are the strong bonds of loyalty that bind Franco to police force colleagues likes his regular patrol partner Dino (Francesco Di Leva). But it’s the central relationship between Franco and his younger wife that is the film’s emotional core. Billing and cooing like high-school sweethearts who just happen to be married, their tender rapport is given heft by two fine performances. Favino plays Franco as a man whose eyes and sad smile betray the fact that, right from the start, he kind of knows how this is all going to end.