The film takes flight on the brilliant title performance by Tony Servillo (Gomorrah), who plays Andreotti like a mummified Alec Guinness, as if encased in layers of plaster of Paris.

| Aug 23, 2009

We may not know the man, but we know the dance, as seen in the highly diverting and hugely controversial Il Divo, a biopic as wly as its subject.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 10, 2009

A stunning piece of work that feels both familiar and completely unique at the same time.

| Jul 10, 2009

After I saw Il Divo, I suppose I should have felt indignation. I suppose I should also have felt that way after "The Godfather." But such films present such mesmerizing figures that I simply regard them, astonished.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 9, 2009

The enigmatic Andreotti is the perfect subject for a biopic in the European tradition.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 30, 2009

All in all, this phenomenal film illustrates Alexis de Tocqueville's observation that "The people get the government they deserve." In both meanings of the word, Il Divo is sensational.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 5, 2009

Il Divo joins Matteo Garrone's more expansive, more extraordinary Gomorrah -- which contains an even better performance from Servillo -- as a grim portrait of the trouble with modern Italy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 4, 2009

A must-see for political junkies of any nationality.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 28, 2009

Il Divo is best appreciated as the bizarre character study of an essentially unlovable man who somehow became one of his country's most successful leaders.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 15, 2009

Simultaneously exhilarating and confounding, dazzling and confusing, this is filmmaking of such verve and style that you likely won't care that you can't follow it completely.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 30, 2009

You need know nothing about Italian politics to completely enjoy the fantastical, Fellini-fied, tragi-comic, biographical fun-for-all Il Divo.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 29, 2009

You could dismiss Servillo's portrayal as a cartoon, but the great actors know that beneath the dark surface of caricature lies a heightened and vivifying truth, as potent as fortified wine. Consume with great caution, and with joy.

| Apr 27, 2009

So much half-digested information is expelled, so many key incidents skate by, that the effect is like being force-fed a history lesson you never wanted to sit through in the first place.

| Original Score: C- | Apr 24, 2009

Director Paolo Sorrentino's knockout drama Il Divo concentrates on Andreotti's final government (1991-92) and subsequent legal battles.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 24, 2009

As operatic cinema, it ranks alongside the best of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 24, 2009

Sorrentino's directorial flourishes are at least partly to blame for the lack of clarity; his ornate setpieces are frequently dazzling, but as they pile up over two hours, they wind up distracting as often as they illuminate.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 23, 2009

Il Divo taps into something that's indeed borderless: Americans recognize political corruption and backroom conspiracies even if we don't intimately know the players.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/6 | Apr 22, 2009

Sorrentino's version of Andreotti's story is thus only really fascinating as a bloated vanity project, one that is unlikely to win him many new American defenders.

| Apr 22, 2009

Hard on the heels of the acclaimed Gomorrah, Italian corruption gets a much quieter but equally vigorous workout in Paolo Sorrentino's highly stylized portrait of the country's most enduring political leader.

| Apr 22, 2009

A baroque high comedy of endemic corruption, Il Divo doesn't treat the early-'90s scandal that brought down Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti as a tragedy, thriller, or tale of long-delayed comeuppance, but with resigned wit and florid carica

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2009