An engrossing and occasionally horrifying drama, directed and co-written by Marco Bellocchio (Fists In The Pocket / Good Morning, Night), the lead character, the traitor of the title is Mafia informer Tommaso Buscetta, the first major Mafia member to betray the Cosa Nostra, leading to the longest-running series of trials in Italian legislative history, and being powerfully played by the always-menacing Pierfrancesco Favino (Romanzo Criminale / Angels & Demons).

The Maxi Trial and the character of Buscetta have been portrayed on screen before, by F. Murray Abraham in the film I Giudici / Excellent Cadavers (1999), in which Favino had a small, early role, and in two Italian TV mini-series, Il Capo Dei Capi / The Boss Of Bosses (’07), played by Vincent Riotta, and by Sergio Vespertino in La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate / The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (’16). He is also the subject of the documentary Our Godfather (’19), and it has to be said that Buscetta’s story probably deserves a mini-series of it’s own, being a life, until his decision to become a turncoat, or a renegado, of ruthless criminality and violence from the age of seventeen, being involved in everything from lucrative cigarette smuggling and extortion, to drug trafficking and murder. This is no honourable man finally seeing the light, but a calculating career criminal doing everything to save his own skin after an internal Mafia war claims several of own family members. Although densely scripted, filled with genuine incidents and events in the period between 1980 and 1992, the film is still only a rough outline of a fascinating and enormously complex period in Italian societal history, where the Cosa Nostra’s grip on Italian institutions was finally exposed, the judiciary finally became strong enough to prosecute flagrant and boastful gang bosses, and the links of the Mafia to the very highest realms of Italian politics were exposed, all from Buscetta’s testimonies.

Bellocchio, 79 years old at time of shooting, has always been associated with what some have dubbed ‘social cinema’, with films such as In Nel Nome Del Padre / The Name Of The Father (’71), dealing with the shameless abuses of power by the Catholic Church decades before it was generally exposed and acknowledged, Salto Nel Vuoto / A Leap In The Dark (’80), concerning familial responsibility and mental illness, and Buongiono, Notte / Good Morning, Night (’03) revolving around the kidnap and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro by The Red Brigade, one can see what attracted him to the story, and the focus on Buscetta rather than the trials or Giovanni Falcone, already the subject of several film and TV projects, the Mafia man reflecting Bellocchio’s recurrent themes of guilt and redemption, although Buscetta notably prefers the term ‘Penito’ which translates roughly as ‘penitent’ rather than informatore / informer or traitor / traditore, and he also personally forgave Salvatore Cancemi (played in the film by Ludovico Caldarera - La Grande Bellezza), the man who strangled his two young sons, saying he knew there was no way Cancemi could not disobey the orders he had been given by the psychotic Riina (writer and actor Nicola Cali - Amiche Da Morire).