I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

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

I just saw this movie, 25 years after it was filmed. Splendid. It's an Almodovar movie before Almodovar entered the field. The other commentaries said it all. I just want to point out the very last scene of the film.It's so poignant! that young girl we saw throughout the whole movie, as maybe the only innocent and pure creature among all these abominable characters, being the only one that took care of all the children in the slum, helping in the house chores, etc.Now she appears several months pregnant, doing the same things she always did, raising the first one in the morning, getting water for the family from a public faucet, and before getting to the faucet, she does a little ritualistic thing, she jumps over a low remnant of a wall and walks on its edge --dreaming of being a tightrope walker maybe?-- as the only pleasure she got as a child and even now, as a soon to be mother (because she's still a child).That ending shows us that there is no hope for some people in this world, generation after generation they where born to be condemned to live forever under those conditions. Magnificent film!

Nino Manfredi, only professional actor here, shines in this Ettore Scola movie as Giacinto Mazzarella, a former convict with a long series of crimes and a huge, quirky family. He's violent, vulgar, amoral; he lives surrounded by dirt, squalor and poverty. Yet, he's funny. This movie is too funny! Scola directs a group of actors headed by Manfredi, who shows off an irresistible accent, and by Maria Luisa Santella as Iside, Giacinto's mistress, a fat, sweet but silly woman with an "ancient name". But it isn't a carefree comedy: behind the quips and the jokes there's a grotesque depiction of a miserable reality not very far from San Pietro, the most important Catholic building in the world. Not a perfect film, but a very good one.

I would not call this a comedy. Maybe a tragicomedy. It is true, some scenes are funny. But that's not the point. The point is to give an hyper-realistic, painful portrait of extreme ignorance and poverty, and its consequences. These people cannot afford to be good, honest, or have any positive family feeling. Like prisoners in a Nazi camp, they are deprived of all their humanity. The only thing that keeps the family united is the shack they live in, and the idea of taking Giacinto's money. I want to stress the fact that the movie _is_ realistic. There _were_ shantytowns around Rome in the seventies. And the people _were_ like that. The constantly mocking and jocking attitude is a trait of the Roman popular culture. It does not mean they're happy and light-hearted. So beware, this movie won't just give you a good laugh. If you like it, check this out as well, I don't think you can buy it, but the Italian RAI TV showed it some time ago: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0073339/

Just a great film! I think that "Ugly, Dirty an Bad" has more quality than many "Hollywood-made-to-win-Oscars" films. Let's forget by now the humor side of the film; the content brought to the viewer shows as those kind of people try to survive day by day in extreme poverty and illness. Much more than a film to make people laugh, it's a documentary and a "finger-in-wound" in nowadays issues. I hope people after see that movie just don't remember the funniest scenes, but also the human side of the whole story pictured in there. Remember, everywhere we go, even if all around seems to be nice and beauty, somewhere, if we look carefully, we can discover "dark spots"... Recently in an opinion article about another film, in the heading section we could read "[...] Mary, satiated of removing thorns from the rose flowers in local factory [...]" That's the point: there's no roses without thorns! And if you see a rose without them, it's because someone had remove it before...