Search: Starring Valerio Mastandrea

Diabolik is a protagonist, but not a likeable one. Not only an antihero, a murderer. Luca Marinelli has charisma in spades, but not here.

While the end result doesn’t fully deliver on its excellent premise, being a little too light of touch, heavy on montage and spare in its scripting, this is nevertheless one of the more accessible cinematic takes on existentialism.

If only Zanasi and co had put a little more faith in the psychological elements of the screenplay rather than worshipping at the altar of cheap laughs.

Part farce, part political commentary, part soul-searching device.

Falls short because it's not quite good enough to surmount the language barrier.

The lavish decoration, aesthetically pleasing and beautifully photographed, exposes the artificiality of the storyline.

Pasolini's unfinished life remains painfully unresolved, as it should be.

The admiable moral distance that the film keeps from certain key events may leave viewer without pre-existing opinions stranded.

The trouble with V-Max is that you couldn't care less about the characters.