Ammore e malavita (2017)

Don Vincenzo Strozzalone is a Camorra boss in central Naples, nicknamed “The King of Fish.” After surviving an attack by a rival gang thanks to the intervention of his most trusted hitmen, Ciro, an orphan from Torre Annunziata adopted by the boss, and Rosario, known together as “The Tigers,” he realizes he is tired of living this life. On the advice of Donna Maria, his film-loving wife, he fakes his death, as James Bond does in a movie. Maria also knows a man who works in a shoe store and is his exact double, so she has him killed to make the story more believable. To ensure her husband’s men keep the secret, she decides to give them a share of her husband’s empire, while she and Vincenzo will use the priceless diamonds she has kept hidden to escape and start a new life. The plan seems to be working, but while Vincenzo is in the hospital, his secret is put at risk by Fatima, a young nurse from Torre Annunziata whom Don Vincenzo orders eliminated because she has seen him. Ciro and Rosario are at the hospital looking for the girl. By chance, she runs into Ciro and recognizes him as the boy she grew up with in Torre Annunziata and her first great love, before he decided to join Don Vincenzo’s clan, intent on revenge after his father was killed by unknown assailants. Ciro, who has never forgotten her, cannot kill her and flees with her toward their hometown. Rosario sees his friend run off with the girl after threatening Ciro with a gun and shooting at the motorcycle. He reports this to Don Vincenzo and Donna Maria, who are convinced Ciro is actually an accomplice of the rival clan—and therefore a traitor—and decide to have both him and the girl killed, putting a bounty on Ciro’s head. Rosario is more determined than ever to kill him, feeling betrayed because they trained together and shared so many adventures that they considered each other brothers. Meanwhile, to protect Fatima, Ciro hides her at the home of his uncle from Torre Annunziata, who makes a living through smuggling, while he kills off many of his boss’s hitmen to prevent them from hunting him down in the future. By looking at Fatima’s Facebook page, Donna Maria and Rosario discover her relationship with Ciro, and Rosario begins investigating to find him. He learns that Ciro’s uncle, Mimmo, has a daughter in New York, so he calls a contact in America to go to her. The contact then forces Mimmo to report Ciro’s movements to Rosario. While at the port settling a score with other criminals, Ciro is confronted by Fatima. To make him listen to her, she handcuffs herself to him, so he is forced to face the hitmen with Fatima as “dead weight.” Fatima witnesses the massacre and is disgusted by what Ciro has become, but they cannot discuss it because more of the boss’s men, summoned by Mimmo and led by Gennaro, force them to retreat to the top floor of the building. There, Ciro deals with yet another threat, Gennaro included, but not without considerable difficulty, and is wounded in one hand. Ciro cannot understand how Don Vincenzo’s men knew where he was, but Fatima, having heard Mimmo talking to someone while she was hidden on the boat, realizes that her uncle has betrayed them. Shortly afterward, she gets a confession from Mimmo himself. Fatima, however, is tired of all these deaths and decides that from now on they will do things her way. Meanwhile, Rosario, who could not reach the others because he had escaped an ambush by his own boss’s rival, arrives at the scene of the massacre and swears revenge over Gennaro’s corpse. A short time later, during the funeral for the supposedly dead boss, Ciro appears in front of Donna Maria, knowing they cannot do anything to him in front of the crowd, the press, and the police who have come to the ceremony. But as Ciro leads Rosario on a chase, Maria realizes Ciro has stolen from her necklace the key to the bunker where her husband is hidden. She has word sent to Vincenzo that the place is no longer safe and that he must flee. Meanwhile, Fatima goes to Don Vincenzo’s house and, pretending to be one of his maids, informs the authorities that he is alive and at home. The police, though incredulous, go to the house and are astonished to discover that the boss really is alive. They arrest him along with the few men still with him, while the officers at the funeral arrest Donna Maria. Ciro and Rosario have a final confrontation on a beach. Ciro does not want to kill Rosario because he cares about him, but after an exhausting fight, he is forced to kill him, to his great regret. Unexpectedly, however, Uncle Mimmo, while on his boat, pulls out a machine gun and shoots Ciro in front of Fatima’s helpless gaze, killing him. He then sends a video of Ciro’s death to the hitman in New York, who, satisfied, leaves Mimmo’s daughter’s house and never returns. Some time later, Fatima is at the airport when Ciro, still alive, joins her. Fatima’s plan was to make everyone believe Ciro was dead, and to do so they enlisted a friend of hers who specializes in special effects to simulate the bullets hitting Ciro. After making everyone think he was dead and saying a final farewell to his deceased friend, Ciro dived into the sea to make it seem the tide had carried him away. Meanwhile, after calling the police, Fatima took advantage of the general chaos to enter the bunker and steal the diamonds Donna Maria had kept in a secret place. After giving some of the diamonds to Uncle Mimmo, the two keep the rest for themselves and leave, putting that terrible story behind them so they can start a new life together.