Squillo Movie Review: This film, Squillo, is by Giovanni Di Clemente, and it stars Raz Degan (Inspector Tony Messina), Jennifer Driver (Maria), Paul Freeman (Marco), Bianca Koedam (Eva), Antonio Ballerio (Fabio), Alessandra Chiti (Sonja Rassimov), Luigi Montini (Superintendent Simoni), Pia Klover (Barbara), Yanai Degan (Salvatore), Caterina Rebracca (Rita), and Cyrus Elias (hotel receptionist). Giovanni Di Clemente was born on February 5, 1948, in Rome, Italy, and he died on January 2, 2018, in Rome, Italy, at 69. He was an Italian television and film producer. Directed by Carlo Vanzina and written by Carlo Vanzina, Enrico Vanzina, and Franco Ferrini, and produced by Giovanni Di Clemente, this film was filmed in Italy.
Squillo Movie Review: Involves Erotic Beauties in a Whodunit Mystery
This movie is about a young Polish woman who visits her older sister in Italy, and she suddenly becomes suspicious about her sister’s glamorous job and lifestyle, more so after her sister’s sudden disappearance. Maria arrives in Italy, looking like a sweet, naïve, and down-to-earth girl from a small farm town. After her sister’s disappearance, she goes to the police, but they aren’t able to do much. She starts investigating on her own, working undercover, dressed in her sister’s glamorous outfits, and she eventually starts working with the police inspector, similar to an Italian Sherlock Holmes and a sexy Watson. Using her sister’s cell phone, she follows clues and meets her sister’s clientele and friends to gather information from each person about her sister’s whereabouts. This suspenseful mystery kept me intrigued, as I wondered which man was involved. This Spaghetti-Western movie has some twists and turns as well as light romance and comedy, which kept me entertained throughout the whole movie. The scenes flowed well with action, drama, and suspense. She grows up fast during her dark adventure in Milan.
Furthermore, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eva had moved from a farm in Poland to Milan. She worked her way up to a glamorous career and made lots of money. When her younger sister Maria comes to visit, she becomes suspicious about Eva’s career, and she starts investigating. For one thing, Eva looks like a glamorous supermodel. She picks up little clues via phone calls, messages on a notepad, and a nice apartment with two bathrooms, which is big and luxurious compared to a small farm in Poland. I noticed that Maria often goes by Emma, as well as other characters have two names because they appear to have double lives.
Maria admires her sister’s glamorous lifestyle and beauty
Barbara calls to invite Eva to an event. Maria answers Eva’s cell phone and accepts the invitation as Eva. She dresses up in Eva’s sexy clothes and auburn bob wig, and she hops on the subway to meet Barbara. Thinking Maria is really Eva, Barbara offers Maria a high-paying Call Girl job. Then, two men approach them for a good time. But Maria tries to avoid the Call Girl work, preferring to concentrate on interrogating certain people who can help her find her sister. She excuses herself, goes to the restroom with Barbara’s cell phone, and looks through Barbara’s cell phone for Sonja’s number. Barbara eventually gives Maria the contact information to Sonja’s home.
The next day, Maria goes by the name Emma, when she meets Sonja at her house. Sonja seem distressed about Maria’s questions. When she leaves, she sees Sonja walking outside briskly. She decides to follow her throughout the Milan town center and into a museum, where Sonja tells someone about Emma seeking Eva. Sonja appears to be alarmed as she tells an unseen person that this Emma went to the police. After struggling to loosen the man’s grip off her, Sonja ends up on the roof and being pushed off. Police arrive to see Sonja’s dead body on the ground. Maria tells the police that Sonja was pushed. The police inspector is now willing to talk to Maria about Eva’s disappearance because he feels she is a good detective. The police officers note that Barbara is not that woman’s real name because she is listed under another name.
Maria and Barbara party together before Maria gets Sonja’s information
Maria continues to answer Eva’s cell phone, pretending to be Eva, and going undercover as Emma to different job assignments at hotels and restaurants. The police have a possible suspect that Eva has been seen with, but they need to catch him in the act. The police inspector, Tony, gives Maria a phone to use so he can eavesdrop on her assignment inside the hotel suite. She turns on the phone so that Tony can listen for clues. The German man notices she isn’t Eva, but she looks like her, and he guesses that she must be Eva’s sister.
She meets her next client at a restaurant, and he is a lawyer who goes by another name while meeting call girls. Before she goes with this man, she calls Inspector Tony to inform him about the man and her assignment. He follows them in his yellow sports car as the man picks up Maria in his fancy black car. Tony listens on his phone as he follows them into the apartment building and up the elevator. Maria provides little clues here and there for the inspector to follow. The man offers her a million lira for the night. While he goes into another room, she goes through his wallet to look for information, and his money falls out. She also calls Tony to inform him about her exact location. The man returns to catch her going through his wallet, right before Tony knocks on the door to rescue her from the man. She informs Tony that this man is a married man with a young daughter, and she doesn’t think he had anything to do with the disappearance of her sister.
Love starts to blossom between Maria and Tony, and they passionately make out together. Maria later wakes up in her sister’s apartment, and she suddenly sees a man inside, looking for Eva. Tony is still there, and he kicks the man out. Tony and Maria continue their detective work. The police chief wants to deport Maria back to Poland while suspending Tony. While Maria is packing, Eva’s fluffy white cat is suspicious because of unfamiliar footsteps. Eva’s friend, Rita, comes by to stay at Eva’s house during her assignment. As the taxicab drive Maria to the airport, she notices the Neotech business building. She remembers it from a photograph, where Eva and Sonja were posing together by the Neotech sign. As she arrives at the airline terminal, Tony stops her from boarding the airplane because he found important information. They go to the morgue to see if the dead body is Eva’s corpse. When they see Eva’s body, they notice she is wearing one gold earring.
Maria travels by subway to meet Barbara
Pretending to be Eva going on her Call Girl assignment with a businessman who works at Neotech, Maria feels this businessman is the person who killed her sister. Tony receives a call that that man had called Maria from a phone booth. I noticed most of the men tend to call Maria from a phone booth. When the Neotech businessman picks up Maria, Tony follows the car. He gets distracted by a young Polish man on the street trying to wash his car window. Maria and the businessman enter the company house, which is used as a pied-à-terre. She immediately goes to the bathroom to call Tony. But she ends up writing something backwards on the mirror with red lipstick. She keeps a knife with her as she undresses into black lacy lingerie.
As she gathers information from this man, he states that he knows Eva is dead. Tony notices the code words on the mirror, and he hurriedly enters to save Maria. She mentions that the police are coming, and he shoots himself in the mouth. The Neotech married man calls the businessman with Maria, but Tony answers the phone. Alarmed about this unfamiliar voice, the Neotech businessman decides to drive to the Neotech house. The police department arrives to take away the dead body.
Meanwhile, Maria is falling in love with Tony, but he is reluctant to be in a relationship with her. He tells her that he is married and he has a baby daughter. Feeling Tony misled her, she walks away from him as it starts to rain. The Neotech married man drives by and picks her up, but she goes with him only if he takes her to a taxi stand. The Neotech businessman drives her home, to Eva’s house, and drops her off. While searching for her keys, she sees Eva’s other earring inside his glove compartment.
The Neotech businessman looks inside his car to see what Maria had seen, and he notices Eva’s other earring. During a flashback, he remembers when he was with Eva, and she was seducing him while undressing him, which led him to kick her back. She fell backwards, against a table, and blood gushed down the side of her head. She died, but it appears to be an accident.
The Neotech businessman enters Eva’s apartment to return the other earring to Maria. Rita arrives to see a man choking Maria, and she uses a knife to stab him. The police arrive, and Rita is hysterically crying. The movie ends with a taxicab arriving to pick up Maria. As she picks up her luggage and the fluffy white cat inside a pet carrier, Eva’s cell phone starts to ring. She pauses for a while and just stares at the cell phone on the table before picking it up. But she doesn’t answer. Dressed in a short white dress, lot of makeup, and her hair sleeked back, she appears to have been transformed into Eva because Maria now looks as glamorous as Eva used to look. But she just listens to Eva’s male client, asking to meet Eva. It appears to be open-ended because she looks very angry as she listens to the man, who apparently doesn’t know that Eva is dead. But the taxicab is waiting to take her to the airport, back to Poland. I enjoyed watching this mystery whodunit movie because it is a good suspense movie. It was fun to follow the clues, along with Maria, in order to figure out what the clues uncover and how the movie ends.
This full movie is in English, and it can be watched on YouTube for free.
