GLI ESECUTORI (STREET PEOPLE)
1. This film as an Italian version of an American thriller? The particular Italian emphases in style, acting, emphases on violence and the Mafia themes? The use of English and American actors? Audience response to this international amalgam?
2. The significance of the title and its reference to the various characters? Indications of themes?
3. The importance of the opening with the emphasis on the crucifix? The two older men with their memories? The symbol of conflicts of religion and drug peddling and wealth? Was this theme well developed throughout the film?
4. The presentation of the American Mafia and its way of life? Did it make it credible? Attractive, unattractive? Violence, cruelty, men playing God with other people's lives?
5. The importance of the Sicilian inheritance of the American Mafia? The Sicilian way of life and its influence on the main characters? How convincingly was it visualized?
6. The contrast of the two older men and the flashback memories? The tough boy versus the altar boy? The gangster versus the bishop? The importance of the excommunication sequence? How real is the hold of religion over such gangsters?
7. Ulysses presented as the new man? His Sicilian origins, English father, his memories in his flashbacks? His success and career in America? his helping of the gangster but working for organizations? The smart man who knew the law? Who could fabricate situations? The importance of his visiting Sicily, deaths? His ability to win?
8. His henchmen and the way that he was used? His capacity for violence? Especially his capacity for driping? How important were the chase sequences? His relationship with Ulysses?
9. How ugly was this world of crime, drugs, revenge?
10. The build-up to the climax with Ulysses remembering the truth? The flashback memories of his father and his death? The confronttation with the gangster, his death? The using of the bishop?
11. What had Ulysses gained by the end of the film? The moral value of this kind of ruthlessness to gain everything and having nothing? How valuable a gangster thriller was this film?
