Sadly Over-hyped

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

In my opinion it is a film without any grace. It is incredible to see the great and funny film "Amici Miei" has the same rating as this awful "Fantozzi". It's horrendous repetitive succession of sketches. It is a horrible movie and i don't understand what kind of people may like this movie. But what surprises me is that so few people have been suspended it.In Spain there are also similar films as the films of Paco Martínez Soria for example. It is very difficult to stand and watch the entire movie. There are moments when it seems incredible how bad it is. I write this review because I love the comedies of all sorts and I was completely disappointed with this film.All in all, a complete and total waste of time.

This film is a veritable milestone in the history of Italian film comedy and was the start of a series of 10 outings (which spanned nearly 25 years) featuring the hapless titular character, the epitome of a working-class underdog (who had been introduced in novel form by star/co-writer Paolo Villaggio himself); in itself, while patchy overall, it's still the second best in the entire series.Here we are introduced to the characters which would reappear throughout the series: Fantozzi's frumpy wife (which would eventually be played, from the third entry onwards, by Luis Bunuel regular Milena Vukotic), his hideous daughter who looks more like a monkey (actually played a boy - subsequently a man - in drag!); his overbearing colleagues - the ever-optimistic myopic organizer (Gigi Reder), the playboy figure who's arrogant to his peers but utterly complacent to his superiors (Giuseppe Anatrelli), the free-spirited woman (Anna Mazzamauro) whom he desires but who's really quite unattractive herself; the employers, as befits the satiric nature of the films, are depicted as near deities with their offices fitted with armchairs in human skin and in whose aquariums swim a selected number of 'lucky' employees!! The first entry has its fair share of memorably comic sequences: the football game during a thunderstorm between single and married men, Fantozzi's recurring mystical visions which invariably occur after having incurred a particularly heavy physical blow, the road rage sequence featuring a confrontation with a gang of thugs, the billiard game in which Fantozzi, after much verbal abuse, turns the tables on his superior and eventually kidnaps the latter's love-struck mother as security against his vengeance and a scene at a Japanese restaurant where, among other calamities, samurai are lopping off the limbs of those customers who are not appreciative of their cuisine!!

The Fantozzi saga in Italy is something you can not do without. A lot of quotes are common use in everyday life of people. Paolo Villaggio, who is the author of the original books of Fantozzi, is also the perfect cast for the part, but also all the other characters are outstanding representations of the real life working environment (I personally enjoy very much "Geometra Calboni" interpreted by Giuseppe Anatrelli).I happened to think, and more then once, that these movies are not to be lost, they are a portrait of Italian life in the 70s and they are an example on how you can laugh (and laugh loud!) with a very low level (especially in the first and second episodes) of vulgarity. I'll take for me VHS or DVD collection to show them to my children's, with the hope that their generation will enjoy them as much as mine.

This is the first movie of the long Fantozzi-series. And as it often happens all the follow-ups were never as good as the original. This movie is based on a book written by Paolo Villaggio himself (Fantozzi, main character in the movie). You can define it as the first movie of a new italian comedian style. It was the break-point of Villaggio's actor-career. Today he's one of the most famous italian comedians, a lot of people know Villaggio but everybody knows Fantozzi. The success of this movie is probably based on the fact that everybody can identify with Fantozzi. He's a normal worker, has a happy family an awful-looking daughter, some friends and he is into Signorina Silvani who works with him. You can compare Fantozzi to Al Bundy. Nothing works like he wants but at the end everything is alright. I don't know if the Fantozzi-movies have been translated to English, but if you have the chance to watch one of them don't miss it!!