Tutti gli uomini del deficiente (1999)

Leone Stella is an engineer from Genoa who has become the extremely wealthy and enterprising owner of Totem Arts, a highly successful multinational video game company based at Monasterolo Castle in the province of Bergamo. Now elderly, he decides to hand the reins of the company to someone with the same name as him (or Stella Leone, if the person is a woman), following a shaman’s advice that a person’s destiny is hidden in their name (nomen omen in Latin), and also because of the meaning of the words Leone Stella: “He who makes others play.” Since there are so many people with the same name scattered throughout Italy, he decides to put the candidates through various challenges inspired by his life and the video game dedicated to him, Doctor Leo Star. Each challenge, which the contestants will face in the real world, must be completed before the President does it in the video game. Everyone must also travel dressed as Doctor Leo Star—that is, as hippies—with little video cameras and radios on them, tracked online, without money, and getting help only from strangers. The Gialappa’s off-screen commentary accompanies each challenge, reviving the format of the TV shows that made them famous. They also give each participant a nickname to distinguish them from the others with the same name: Léon is a professional hitman whose mother disapproves of him; Stella is an elementary-school teacher persecuted by her ex-husband; Little Star is a former stripper who admires Leone Stella’s work; L.S. DJ is a self-centered and annoying disc jockey; Don Leone is a country priest; “human guinea pig” is nicknamed for his job (“biological self-experimenter”); the marathon runner gets his nickname from the way he tries to complete the first running challenge; Mr. Sacred Wok is an extraordinarily lucky man, thanks to a keepsake made from a meteorite, sent by a video game company linked to three Yakuza members intent on acquiring Totem Arts. The first challenge requires the candidates to reach La California (a hamlet in Bibbona, in the province of Livorno), getting help only from strangers. It parodies Leone Stella’s trip to California just after graduating. The second challenge is to transport marijuana into Switzerland without being caught at customs, a parody of the President’s marijuana dealing in America during his youth. However, this challenge is only a prank: in reality, the candidates are carrying harmless chicory. The third challenge requires them to spend a night in prison, just as the President did when he was young. The fourth challenges the contestants to kiss the first person they meet upon leaving the prison, as the President did in his youth. The fifth challenge is to find the truck in which the President is hiding, a parody of “finding oneself.” The challenges are riddled with interference from Stella’s ex-husband, the Yakuza’s attempts to help Mr. Sacred Wok, the murder of L.S. DJ, pranks by the President himself, and more. The sixth and final challenge has the only contestant left, Stella, attempting to defuse a bomb, which is fake in this case too. Stella therefore wins the company and is reunited with Leon. At the very end, however, Martino, Stella’s ex-husband, arrives after planting a real bomb in the complex, but only the Gialappa’s trio are in the building, and they unexpectedly survive. During the announcement of the contest, the Leone Stella whose belongings are being seized is eliminated: he cannot hear the announcement because of the people seizing his property. At the end of the seizure, however, he throws himself out of a window in despair and lands on his neighbor’s windowsill, where he hears the announcement; despite himself, he keeps falling until he crashes onto the street. During the explanation of the challenges, a contestant does not believe in the power of the Sacred Wok, missteps, and crashes to the ground. First challenge, reaching La California: all the secondary characters and the marathon runner are eliminated, the latter after being struck by a ball. Second challenge, crossing the Swiss customs border: the human guinea pig is eliminated after ending up in a Nazi restaurant, and L.S. DJ is killed by Leon. Third challenge, spending a night in prison: Little Star is eliminated after injuring her meniscus while stripping in front of the guards. Fourth challenge, kissing the first person they meet: Leon is eliminated; he withdraws because he is being hounded by the old woman he tried to pickpocket the previous evening. Fifth challenge, finding the President: Don Leone is eliminated after being drugged by the anti-clerical group made up of the Swiss Guards, and Mr. Sacred Wok is eliminated after being struck by a meteorite that falls to Earth shortly after his lucky keepsake breaks. Sixth challenge, defusing the bomb: won by Stella Leone.