Suburra, film review: "A rain-soaked introduction to a fresh talent"

"It will be regarded as the film that kick-started a body of work surely destined for Stefano Sollima"

Suburra, a rain-soaked hyper-stylised introduction to Italian filmmaker Stefano Sollima, is resplendently neo-noir - a crime thriller that may initially begin a meretricious homage set to the backdrop of select songs by French electronic act M83 but ends having embedded itself into the flesh under your skin; there it stays.

The character resting at the heart of this sprawling ensemble is amoral MP Filippo Malgradi (Pierfrancesco Favino) whose night of debauchery kickstarts a series of events that ricochet through Rome involving abduction, blackmail and vicious canines that would make Game of Thrones villain Ramsay Bolton feel ashamed.

Stylistically, the film's influences are plain to see: Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Michael Mann, to name but a few. Like his peers, Sollima displays a knack for refining material and balancing plotlines that would seem overbearing in lesser hands. There's almost a televisual feel pertained by the interweaving character encounters with scriptwriters Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia (adapting Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo's novel) moving them around like chess pieces. In this way, there's even a scent of Coen in the air.

Montage sequences showing concurrent events build to crescendos which force you to instinctively predict what's coming next. Shunning this expectation, Sollima instead throws in a gunshot here, a car accident there - as with life - when you least expect it; this tactic will temporarily turn your seat into a sit-down travelator.

Playing around with the expectations of your audience is a brave ploy but one that pays off. Having now steered both a TV series (acclaimed Italian mob drama Gomorrah) and a two-hour-plus crime epic, Sollima ensures he fast tracks standalone Sicario sequel Soldado to the top of your most-anticipated list. Suburra will be no doubt regarded as the film that kick-started a body of work surely destined for the Italian director.