This crime movie chronicles five separate stories of Italians whose lives are touched by organised crime. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is a timid middleman who distributes money to the families of imprisoned clan members. Totò (Salvatore Abruzzese) is a 13-year-old grocery delivery boy who observes some drug dealers ditching some drugs and a gun when running from the police. Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) is a graduate who works in toxic waste management. His boss Franco (Toni Servillo) illegally dumps the waste in disused quarries. Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) is a haute couture tailor who takes a night-job training Chinese garment workers. Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) are two cocky, out of control, teenage wannabe-gangsters who decide to make a name in the Neapolitan underworld.

It's not every day you watch a movie that turned one author's expose into an international blockbuster and got him permanent police escort by the Italian government, effectively walking around with a fat price tag on his head. That's Roberto Saviano, the man who wrote the tell-all 2006 book with the same name, about the Naples-based criminal organisation most know as the Camorra.

You can see why these mobsters want him shot - the book sold more than two million copies in Italy alone reportedly and got translated and published in more than 40 countries. That's not something you want the world to know if you're an organisation with a worse reputation than those other gun-toting folks in Sicily who got more Hollywood screen time. The frightening details in Matteo Garrone's unglamourous direction and Maurizio Braucci's unflinching screen treatment are already evident in an opening scene set in a tanning shop - you never know when they come at you, you just know that they will. This pretty much sets the tone for the documentary-like feature. We follow a few characters around and have a privileged inside look at how the Camorra affects their lives.

Staying as far away as possible from the lionisation and glorification of gangsters, "Gomorra" isn't "Godfather" or "Scarface" (which is ironically referenced in a scene where two young wannabe mobsters mimic Pacino in the de Palma classic) but more like an even gritter "Eastern Promises" without the stylish dialogue and A-list stars. "Gomorra" distinguishes itself by focusing on gang activity instead of the gangsters. Highlights include the illegal toxic waste industry (Carmine Paternoster as a young grad who unassumingly works for a ruthless contractor played by Toni Servillo) and the illegal immigrant issue (Salvatore Cantalupo as a skilled tailor who decides to accept a job training Chinese workers). The best developed story is that of Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) a reluctant go-between who visits families of jailed or dead gangsters to distribute cash. This one exceptionally brings forward themes of desperation and being trapped - but generally all the stories convey the inescapability of normal people from the long arms of the Camorra and their criminal network.

"Gomorra" is Italy's submission to the 2008 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Pic and was a Palme d'Or nominee at Cannes. It's dead serious and ought to be appreciated as such, especially when you know the man who brought this story out into the open is unlikely to ever lead a normal life. A true thinking man's gangster flick, it will end as suddenly as it started and get you wishing there was more to see, despite already clocking two hours and 17 minutes.