Genre: Thriller

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Daniele Vicari

Cast: Elio Germano, Michele Riondino, Chiara Caselli, Valentina Lodovini, Daniela Poggi

Released: 2008

Duration: 117 Minutes

Rating: R18 contains violence, sexual violence, drug use, offensive language and sex scenes

Distribution: Palace Films & Fandango Portobello

2008 Rome Film Festival: L.A.R.A. award (Michele Riondino)

Elio Germano (‘Her Whole Life Ahead’) - the multi-talented actor and current hot hit in Italy – sizzles in this compulsive cat-and-mouse thriller, set in the brooding cityscapes of the southern Italian port of Bari.

Giorgio (Germano) is a promising young prosecutor who meets by chance clever cardsharp Francesco (Michele Riondino, also in ‘Fortapàsc’). Francesco introduces him to the world of high stakes poker and engineers the cards to ensure that Giorgio is a winner. It is the beginning of a compulsion that threatens to pull Giorgio's life off the rails as he neglects his studies, embarks on a steamy affair with a married woman (Chiara Caselli) and starts to reject all the moral certainties of his family background.

Based on the bestseller by lawyer Gianrico Carofiglio, this superbly performed thriller is directed with great skill by Daniele Vicari, who maintains a tight control over the compellingly dark atmosphere throughout. Germano is matched, scene for scene, by the wonderful Riondino and it is their relationship which lifts this nimble study of temptation and self-destruction into something special.