THE LEGIONNAIRE -- Harrowing Social Issues Thriller Would Benefit from More Definition

Review by Daniel Lima

​Regardless of one’s political affiliations, it’s hard to find any sympathy for police officers charged explicitly with clearing people out of their homes. ​The Legionnaire makes a valiant attempt to engender that sympathy through its portrait of a cop torn between his sense of duty to his badge and his roots. While the way it builds out his world is admirable, it can’t help but feel constrained by its own narrative limitations.

Germano Gentile plays an Afro-Italian riot officer  — one of the jack-booted troops with shields and batons who hit protesters and clear out apartment buildings of unwanted tenants. He emigrated to Italy from Africa, and his brother and mother still live in the apartment building he lived in as a child, along with a community of squatters who have a longstanding agreement with the building’s owners. Now, the owners want them out, and Gentile has to contend with navigating a war between two sides of his life.
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Some familiarity with Italian history and current events is helpful in understanding the film, and I must admit I have only cursory knowledge of any of that. The country has seen a large influx of migrants over the past several years, leading to a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Left-wing politics have played a large part in the nation, and the community of migrants seems to identify themselves as communists. Squatters have a decent amount of legal rights. Everything beyond that, however, was left for me to infer.

Fortunately, one of the greatest strengths of the film is how much it communicates: entirely organically. The cluttered, beleaguered apartment of the squatters is no paradise, but all that clutter is evidence of a place that has been a real home for hundreds of people for decades. The pristine settings Gentile’s cop finds himself in feel almost austere by comparison, clean and presentable but devoid of personality. The warmth and diversity of the migrants, devoted as they are to the well-being of the community, is likewise contrasted with the camaraderie of the police. Jovial and tight-knit as they are, the constant casual racism and meat-headed bravado created between the sole Black officer and his supposed brothers-in-arms begs the question: why is he even there?​

The two brothers, like everyone else in the cast, give solid performances. Both Gentile and Maurizio Bousso, as the apartment-dwelling brothers, are tenacious, driven, and stubborn men, certain in their convictions, even though their parallel paths may put them against one another. That said, it does feel like a piece is missing from Gentile’s story. Considering how lived-in his former home is, it feels like a jump to then join the police force, then a special unit that might see him evicting people he grew up with. While the film does wring as much drama from that scenario as possible, that lack of definition ultimately feels like a writerly contrivance.

This is almost certainly the case; The Legionnaire is an adaptation of director Hleb Papou’s short of the same name. Expanding the scope of that earlier film invites questions that hadn’t needed answering, and at a scant eighty minutes there simply isn’t enough time to truly flesh out both sides of this story. As hard as it is to imagine having real empathy for a riot cop, just a bit more context for his motivation in joining and staying in the force would have done wonders.

Even so, The Legionnaire does a good enough job cultivating a particular feel for both sides of the world the brothers find themselves on, and the intensity in their performances carries the film even as you wish to spend more time taking in their surroundings. This is an unusually accomplished first feature for a director, and I look forward to whatever he may bring in the future. 
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The Legionnaire is now streaming on Film Movement Plus.

Rating: 3.5/5