Ray Winston has no place either on the cover or even in the main billing for this film. The clots who decided to re-brand 'Lost in Italy' really need to take a good long look at themselves, but my guess is that marketing types care about one precisely one thing - in that sense, I believe they are as amoral as Winstone's character (young or old - he's the same one-dimensional thug with a massive chip on his shoulder).

I have no problem with an Italian director making an existentialist film set in a picture-perfect Italian village, but a photo of said village on the cover with Tony (Glen Murphy) front and center would have sold roughly 3 copies outside the director's home town. Any suggestion that the plot twist somehow makes this film work just doesn't do it for me, and I'm one of those folk who fervently wishes his childhood could have been different . Not sure why Winstone even took this role - does he need the money that badly ? I gave it 3 for the village but I really cant recommend this to anyone who wants the style of film depicted on the cover of the DVD.

A British thriller; A story about a London gangster who awakes in a remote town in Italy after a serious and life threatening altercation in a nightclub. He is forced to rediscover his past. The audience is always ahead of this slow moving story, which, plainly put, makes for laborious viewing. I did wonder if we were in for a remake of "Ghost" early on. Instead, a very predictable plot unfolds, and regular flashbacks don't assuage this feeling. Unfortunately, we just get more characters, some non-actors and a moribund backstory. The film wastes talent like Ray Winstone who is left to chew up the scenery to awful redundancy playing a ridiculous wastrel. We don't even get closure to the story either. The only characters we can get behind play a minor part. The soundtrack is conspicuously contrived, and of low-fi. The only thing going for it is the locations. Otherwise, it is a simple melodrama littered with foul-mouth dialogue, cynically packaged as a high octane gangster thriller.

A waste of money making it

A waste of time watching it

A waste of actors being in it

A waste of paper for the script

A waste of a beautiful location

In every way it's possible for a film to fail, this film manages it. The dialogue is terrible, the characters imbecilic, the story transparent, the pace turgid, the music intrusive, the slow zooms incessant, the ending disappointing and the cover picture deceiving.

If you're looking for an enjoyable British gangster movie, or a thought provoking drama, this isn't it. It's trying to be something it's not, punching waaay above its weight, and missing the mark every step of the way.

SLOW ZOOMS AND LINGERING SHOTS ARE NOT ART!!

Anybody who gives this film a rating above a 3 is either in need of seeing a lot more films or a plant. I'm only giving it a 1 because Ray's in it. If he'd been playing the main character it might have rated a 2 or 3, but as it stands, a 1 is all this film is worth.

Be nice to yourself and avoid.