Verdone started showing the sins of the crisis that was to hit him in later life with this movie.The gags are still there and so are some of the real-life characters (Bracconieri's Enzo is very good indeed). But overall the movie is very poor.Borotalco was out the year before, and that was a very good example(probably the best) of Verdone's ability to portray the Roman way of life on the silver screen, and have people laughing at it.After this movie Verdone was to make some very nice films, but the sparkle was lost forever.Acqua e Sapone is what one may call a "plain" movie.The story is nothing special,the acting is rather bad,the gags old and not very funny.The only good bits are the ones where Verdone and Bracconieri are in the same scene, the interaction between the two Roman actors is explosive.But again these scenes are small and only used as links between the more boring and badly acted love scenes. If one is fond of the Roman dialect then the movie is worth watching for the hilarious antics of Lella Fabrizi, the Montesacro style acting of Fabrizio Bracconieri and , of course, for the funny Verdone bits.But if one is not so amused by the Roman dialect,the movie can be one of the dullest ever.
Review of Acqua e sapone
