The Goodbye Kiss (2006)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fantastic!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Completely so-so. Some parts are nice - music, Alessio Boni, who just CAN'T play bad. But other parts are very strange: it seems that the director himself treated that film non-seriously. Night life, memories about South America, blood, some dialogues - are artificial and lifeless, grotesque. They seem unnatural, although all thoughts of main hero are interesting (perhaps, they were taken strait from the novel). So the serious and even tragic film begin to have some unexpected comic connotation: really, I couldn't help laughing than watching all this "night club things". Feelings of main hero wasn't shown: I see a girl, I want a girl (which is completely normal), but I do not want to sleep with her, I want her to love me (why? of course, the hero has some reason, but nobody show us what it is). Very strange feeling...

Once there was a promising Italian director with a nearly perfect hand when it came to splatter fun like "Deliria" (Stage Fright) and who eventually delivered the exquisite, tongue-in-cheek postmodern zombie flick "Dellamorte Dellamore" (Cemetery Man) with Rupert Everett in his perhaps finest leading role. That's fifteen years ago, with Soavi having done lots of TV work in the meantime -- maybe the reason why "Arrividerci amore, ciao", his first big-screen venture after more than a decade, is exactly looking like a professionally executed RAI Uno television assignment. The biggest problem of "Amore" is the script, working moderately, occasionally even quite well for about an hour, after which the story is rapidly mutating from a pretty tight, at intervals hard-hitting crime flick into an extraordinarily boring wife-murder yawn ultimately dissolving into lukewarm air, the end being one of the most awful letdowns in Italian thriller history. It's probably my last Soavi movie: Arrividerci Michele, ciao.

It is an awful movie. It is incredible since the Novel by Massimo Carlotto was so good. Probably Carlotto should have be involved in the screenplay writing to realize a better movie. The only positive point is Michele Placido , great interpretation. I do not understand how a director such as Soavi could make a terrible movie from a very good story. The music is good and the song is beautiful. I am really upset since I love the "noir" and we could have a good chance....... Sorry but I really did not like It, the screenplay has so many problems and some scenes makes you laugh since they are almost ridicule. All the actors except Placido are not as good as we know them. Enrico

No way, Arrivederci Amore Ciao is the best Italian Thriller released in the last 30 years! It's perfect, taken from a very good novel written by Massimo Carlotto, directed by Michele Soavi, who made horror movies like Dellamorte Dellamore(Cemetery Man)and La Chiesa(The Church), this movie takes your attention up from the beginning till the end. There's no hope of redemption in the screenplay, there's no hope of being a better man. The main character, played by Alessio Boni, who is as awful as always in the acting, but absolutely perfect for the role, is a former terrorist that wants to have a respectable middle class life after years of escape in South America. But if he really wants it, he's got to be ready to do everything, to betray the former comrades, to kill everyone! Michele Placido, director of the still good Romanzo Criminale(Crime Novel), in the role of the corrupted cop is incredible, perfect! I repeat: a fantastic movie, terrifying!At the end of it, I saw people desperately crying in the cinema...If you're going to see it, you'll understand why. Welcome Back to the cinema, Michele Soavi!!! This is the real good New Italian Cinema! These(Arrivederci, Romanzo Criminale, Occhi di Cristallo) are the movies Italy has got to show the world! Go and see it now, if you can.