What is a hero? It’s an individual gifted of great skill and extraordinary courage, that knows how to choose good instead of evil, that sacrifices himself to save others but mostly he doesn’t hold back when he has everything to lose and nothing to gain.
In a time of superheroes, where superheroes seem to define ourselves, our ambition and the perfection of a life that looks so unrealistic that cannot even be dreamed about, we find Jeeg reminding us that in real life, nothing is perfect, even if you are invincible.
It’s heartwarming that among this endless, hard to avoid, superheroes zoo, the “Eternal city” of Rome gave the world a story about not saving the world.
Enzo Ceccotti is a low life thug that hates people and tries to make a living day after day until once, while escaping from the police, he ends up jumping in the Tiber getting infected by a strange goo. What happens next is the awakening. After a shootout on a rooftop, he fell from the 9th floor straight to the ground: a few blinks, a couple WTF and the fear of not comprehending what just happened.
Once he gets back home he meets Alessia, his criminal associate’s daughter, whose mental state has been shattered due to some traumas she was victim of when she was child that froze her reality and comprehension. In her mind all is about the story of the cartoon “Steel Jeeg” and she believes that her father has been taken prisoner by the lord of fire, asking Enzo to help her save him and fulfill his destiny.
Enzo doesn’t care about people and even less about the world, but his journey will be a long intricate dance with local mobsters, Alessia and himself.
But what would be the first thing you’d do finding out you have super strength? Well, I am not sure yet, but honestly punching an ATM out of the wall and taking it home is probably the most original “first thing to do” I have ever seen.
Life as an outcast can be a choice, but what the director Gabriele Mainetti has to say here is that there is always time to change and do the right thing. The two main characters, Enzo and Alessia, have nothing in common, they are different in so many ways, but…
Superheroes don’t have to save the world to be super, but just by doing what is right.
“They call me Jeeg” is a true superhero story, a real one. Something that can happen to anyone without the need of monsters or aliens to take over the world. It can happen in the town close to where we live or in the same neighborhood. There are no crazy millionaires or former random guys from the army who seek revenge. This is just about a little kingpin who wants to become famous and a cheap messed up drug operation: that’s it.
What makes it real are the people in it: all way far from the perfection we see in Hollywood’s blockbusters, but just regular people.
My only regret is about having watched it yesterday and not in 2015 when it came out.
Mrs. Scarlett
thewhiterabbit 