The Big Fake (2026)
Directed by: Stefano Lodovichi
Premise: An adaptation of the novel Il falsario di Stato by Nicola Biondo and Massimo Veneziani. Set in 1970s Italy, an artist (Pietro Castellitto) moves to Rome and finds work creating forgeries of famous paintings. He finds himself in the company of gangsters and terrorists.
What Works: The Big Fake is a crime movie and as in many of the better gangster pictures, the filmmakers understand the allure of the underworld but they also dramatize the moral corruption that results from indulging that world. The picture has a great style. The Big Fake is a period piece and it looks organically of the era. The film has a grimy and seedy feel that’s appropriate to the subject, simultaneously sexy and dangerous. The story centers on Toni, an ambitious but naïve young artist who stumbles into a nexus of corruption and crime. Toni falls in with an unscrupulous art dealer (Giulia Michelini) who pays him large sums of money to creates forgeries of famous paintings which are then sold on the black market by gangsters. Toni is longtime friends with Fabione (Pierluigi Gigante), a metalworker who joins leftist causes, and Don Vittorio (Andrea Arcangeli), a young priest who joined the clergy for lack of other career options. The story tells a compelling story of young men living out their ambitions but finding disappointment. Toni is well paid for his art but he gets no recognition for it, Fabione gets involved with the Red Brigades, and Don Vittorio regrets the restrictions of life as a clergyman. The Big Fake is set at a tumultuous time in Italy’s history when the country was besieged by political violence and each of these characters is defined in their relationship to political and economic power. Toni’s relentless self-interest and insistence on being neutral puts him in the middle of a violent political conflict that destroys everyone around him.
What Doesn’t: The Big Fake is set at a very specific time in Italy’s history. Viewers who are not familiar with the Years of Lead may have some trouble grasping the larger implications of the action. Of Toni and his friends, the film doesn’t do enough with the priest. Don Vittorio’s story begins with a credibility problem. A low-level Catholic priest would probably be assigned to a particular parish or diocese so having him relocate to the city with his friends like they’re going off to college is unlikely. Don Vittorio clearly has unsatisfied appetites and harbors regrets about his choice of profession but the film doesn’t do much with that idea or this character.
Disc extras: Available on Netflix.
Bottom Line: The Big Fake is a tense crime thriller that thoughtfully explores our relationship to power. On its surface this is a gangster picture and it has the appeal those movies but The Big Fake is also a story of young men navigating a perilous moral universe.
Episode: #1117 (September 20, 2026)