From 9 January, on TV on Sky and streaming on NOW, the six episodes of approximately fifty minutes each of Gomorrah – The Origins will be released, one per week, prequel to the famous series inspired by the equally famous novel by Roberto Saviano, who also created this prequel together with Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, the authors of the screenplay together with Marco “Ciro” D’Amore.

In particular, the origins cited in the title of this new expansion of the Gomorrah-universe are those of Pietro Savastano who, as an introductory writing with some gaps in heraldry reminds us, will become “King of an empire” when he is played by Fortunato Cerlino, but here he is only a “guagliune ‘e via” played by a very young Luca Lubrano who, more than Cerlino, is impressively reminiscent of Leo Messi in his early days, as can be seen from these photos.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by | ناصر (@xco1n)

But the resemblance between the co-protagonist and the second best Argentine footballer ever is not the only thing that surprised us about a series which, as a prequel, in theory shouldn’t surprise too much. If you are interested in knowing more, here is our review of Gomorrah – The Origins, which continues with a spoiler-free summary of the plot and our opinion on the series, of which we report the official trailer at the bottom.

What Gomorrah – The Origins is about

We are in 1977, Pietro is almost sixteen years old and has a fair amount of low-level criminal experience: some theft, smuggling and things like that, as well as driving without a license.

His gang is made up of brothers Manuele (Mattia Francesco Cozzolino) and Lello (Antonio Del Duca), to whose mother Lucia Pietro was entrusted, and of Toni (Junior Rancel Rodriguez Arcia), son of a black drummer, and little Fucariello (Antonio Incalza), who is little more than “a creature”.

But in Secondigliano the idol of these boys is Angelo ‘A Sirena (Francesco Pellegrino), a few years older than them but already capable of commanding respect from the boss in charge of Forcella, Antonio Villa (Ciro Capano), whose son Michele (Renato Russo) is eager to pick up the stick of command.

Angelo also has his own gang, made up of A’ Macchietta (Luigi Cardone), Tressette (Ciro Burzo) and Mimì (Antonio
Good), that we won’t spoil anything if we say that she has Zecchinetta-style hair.

Far from the alleys of Naples but capable of influencing the course of the Camorra from the Poggioreale prison there is Domenico Nunziante known as ‘O Paisano (Flavio Furno), endowed with a mystical charisma that also reaches outside the prison walls.

And then, as can be seen in the trailer and as is right and proper, there is Imma (Tullia Venezia), with whom Pietro falls in love at first sight. Except that Imma is a model high school student who also studies at the conservatory and who makes her rich parents proud: many things will have to happen before the two lovebirds become Imma and Pietro Savastano.

Why watch a series where you already know the ending

In addition to Pietro and Imma, in this prequel we also discover the origins of Annalisa Migliocco (Fabiola Balestriere), the future Scianel who will be killed on the orders of Genny Savastano, who in turn was orphaned by the double murder of his parents by Ciro Di Marzio.

Yet, despite these fairly fundamental spoilers, Gomorrah – The Origins manages to amaze in every possible way, even at the cost of putting the coherence of the Gomorrian canon to the test.

Thanks above all to an impeccable staging, which immediately transports us to the Naples of the 70s in a vortex of sets (Fabrizio D’Arpino), costumes (Olivia Bellini) and soundtrack (Pasquale Catalano) of an exceptional level.

Likewise, one cannot fail to praise the entire cast (and whoever chose it, Davide Zurolo), capable of perfect interpretations in every element, made even more vivid by the direction of Marco “Ciro” D’Amore, supervisor of the series, in the first four episodes, and by Francesco Ghiaccio in the remaining two.

Even more important, however, was the writing work, which was able to juggle between the temptation to please fans and the risk of telling something too predictable, without worrying too much about taking the liberty of telling a compelling story in itself, even more so than how it enriches the biography of characters whose life and death we literally already know.

Maybe some fans will find inconsistencies and contradictions with what was seen in the original series, but at least for this first season, in our opinion, Gomorrah – The Origins can respond with a prequel which, despite everything, has a surprisingly interesting story to tell.

Rating: 8.3