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Beautiful, moving film.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In the countryside of Italy, there is a feud between two families of kidnappers and the boy Vito (Manuel Colao) escapes from the slaughter of his family by the other family hiding under his bed. Before dying, his father advises him to warn his older brother that is hidden in a cave. When Vito arrives there, he finds his brother and a boy called Simone that had been kidnapped by his family dead. He finds a backpack with Simone's address in Rome and he decides to travel to Rome to meet his cousin Orlando (Lucio Zagaria) to flee from the killers that are hunting him down. Orlando gives a pack to Vito to keep for him and he puts in the backpack. Soon Orlando is murdered by the killers and Vito decides to seek out Vito's parents. When he meets them, the disturbed mother Marta Rienzi (Francesca Neri) wants to keep Vito with them, while her husband Davide Rienzi (Jacques Perrin) does not believe in him and decides to pay the ransom to retrieve his son. "La corsa dell'innocente" is a great Italian thriller based on a dark period of Italian history when there were abductions of wealthy people and even politicians. Through the long journey of an innocent orphan victim of a war between two families of kidnappers, the director Carlo Carlei exposes the drama of a family that had the only son kidnapped by a gang. In addition to the great story and performances, the film shows beautiful landscapes and monuments in Italy together with a wonderful music score. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Vôo do Inocente" ("The Flight of the Innocent")

Although from a cinematography the production is good, the story and the actors are in doubt. First the story: it is about a kid from a crime family in the deep south that escapes from a deeply agrarian society to the heavily services-oriented north. Well, sorry to tell you, but the deep south as it is mythologized in the Godfather movies, doesn't exist anymore. Everybody has a cellphone now, nobody wants to be a Sheppard anymore, everybody wants to have an office job. The story is highly simplistic and idiomatic, kind of a cute story of a sweet looking kid with bad guys around him. Then the actors: the parents of the kidnapped child are "acting" the part that it is so obvious. When they see the child's school backpack, the knee to it, pick it up, and embrace it. So obvious, that it is classic "B" movie, and so predictable, more for a melodrama aired in soap-opera afternoons. Even how the director directed the shots has some unnatural feel: when the kid emerges from the crypt in the cemetery, he is made to turn his head slightly and then express surprise to discover there is a vehicle. It is as if the kid didn't have peripheral vision. Such scene direction by putting emphasis on frontal screen scape is typical of television direction of simple and uncomplicated easy-to-do productions. To have it here just shows how simplistic that was. But it was the only time it happened, otherwise, the other scenes are more dynamic

Corsa means race. And this is one of epic dimensions. It is interesting to point out that Carlo Carlei, the director, was in his first effort at the time.As a director myself, I find some of the many runs of Vito a bit over the top. But, at the same time, I must admit that the scarcity of dialogue and the stupor in Vito's attitude is alluring and simply unnerving.This is a film that uses in a very effective way the dramatic and cinematic expression of Panavision. This format is completely accepted as the de facto standard for any major release. But the complexities of using this format in a story that will be told through the eyes of a child is not easy.The superb landscapes and contrasts that make this film as visually stunning and as dark as it is is not a small achievement for a first film. Actually, it's quite unbelievable this is a first directorial job.The natural settings and lighting give, to some scenes, a beautiful psychological break within all the violence and desperation the main character experiences.But, above all, this film is effective. It takes the audience completely off-balance and never lets it go. It's gripping. Even with some really redundant scenes and not so believable twists. But we have to remember that for some dramatic purposes, these twists are a valid resource.Music becomes almost a character in a very unobtrusive form, and I like the sparse passages of really weird and doom-reminding sounds.The language is beautiful, even when the boy and his family speak with a very tight lilt -true to their land. I only object to the incredibly bad voice-over of the only french actor, it's a voice that is as unconvincing as if the man was talking with Hugh Grant's voice.Even when all the slo-mo scenes are masterfully planned and shot, the violence is overwhelming. I wouldn't be that explicit, but -then again, this leads the audience to the unexpected with such a speed that it is pretty justified.All in all, La Corsa... is a riveting film. Manuel Colao's performance and beauty are all the more enticing within such a dark subject matter.

Honestly is one of my all time 10 best italian movies ever. I cant understand how a director like Carlo Carlei it`s not working in Hollywood after this one, like G.Tornattore o R.Bennigni this movie is a great movie and also very original, touching and well shooted. E X C E L E N T italian movie E X E L E N T Carlei "avanti caro"