A visceral descent into the sun-scorched underbelly of Ostia, where the neon haze of drug-fueled ecstasy meets the cold, grey pavement of a desperate redemption, echoing the final, tragic whisper of a cinematic poet.
Don't Be Bad
Non essere cattivo
Director:
Claudio Caligari
Cast:
Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, Silvia D'Amico, Roberta Mattei, Alessandro Bernardini
Drama
Crime
Don't Be Bad - Easter Eggs & Hidden Details
Easter Eggs
Direct reference to Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Accattone'.
The character Vittorio is named after the protagonist of Pasolini's Accattone, signaling that the film is a modern spiritual successor to Pasolini's explorations of the Roman margins.
Mirroring the 'Amore Tossico' gelato scene.
The discussion about gelato flavors at the start of the film is a meta-reference that connects the drug addicts of the 80s (heroin era) to those of the 90s (ecstasy era), showing that while the drugs changed, the desperation remained constant.
Citations of Scorsese's 'Mean Streets'.
The dynamic between the level-headed friend trying to improve (Vittorio) and the volatile, self-destructive one (Cesare) is a deliberate structural homage to Scorsese's classic crime drama.