Hotline Miami

Literally destroying the excess of colors and neon lights of the bulky eighties, Hotline Miami narrates the horrendous everyday life of an ambiguous figure, a shell apparently empty and devoid of any humanity. Within this excellent pulp novel there has never been a drop in rhythm, not mentioning fillers or chapters inserted only to artificially lengthen longevity: each episode is in its own way memorable. The epilogue comes after a five-hour spiral of violence, at the end of which, finally, some of the many questions about the enigmatic protagonist will find partial satisfaction, leaving open in any case wide margins of interpretation.

Not all people in Miami are hostile. Maybe.

With its iconoclastic destruction of that hedonistic decade, Hotline Miami could only take the form of an old-school shooter with a top view: in urban architecture (offices, discos, unhealthy apartments and so on), it will be necessary to make your way accumulating corpses, trying to bring home the skin. Although the rules of the game are rather clear, it cannot be said that the road to the carnage is free of obstacles and risks, since the urban jungle is a territory where the least distraction can cost very dear. The skillfully measured difficulty curve passes from short slaughter to long man-hunting sessions, in which it becomes imperative to alternate blind violence with the most sophisticated silent killing techniques.

As much as it is an irresistible temptation to take up the powerful sawed-off shotgun, there are situations in which it is much more effective to act sneaking, without attracting attention, thus avoiding being surrounded in a few seconds. The elements controlled by artificial intelligence apparently seem devoid of reason, in their continuous wandering through the levels following a predetermined path: just enter their visual space or cause a moment of disarray to literally see them change their personality, assuming an attitude diametrically opposite to. At the first encroachment of the "safe zone", the apparently helpless victims of the bloodthirsty avatar are transformed into tireless hounds, whose ferocity can only be appeased by an even more animalistic and lightning bestiality.

Firearms are often the worst way to deal with the situation.

Hotline Miami is a whirlwind of excitement, anxiety, restlessness, emotions dominated by the constant fear that the black comforter may peep at any moment, in the form of a fan-assisted submachine gun, a katana blow or the tearing jaws of a dobermann rabid. The constant brutality, the accumulation of which makes you uncomfortable, are the only language to reach territorial supremacy, elevating the splatter to grammar of the action on the screen and therefore giving it aesthetic value. The primordial survival instinct is the constant of every mission, as well as the spring of every killing. And, not to be overlooked, Hotline Miami is primarily damn funny, because every anxiety-inducing sensation is inserted in a playful context of absolute quality, in which total freedom of approach stands out: ninja or warmonger that you are, here you will find a way to give free rein to the most perverse fantasies.

The excellent use of perspective gives prominence to the settings, lugubrious, rotten places, as if they were in constant expectation of a tribute of blood. Assorted offal, recreated with surprising anatomical precision, pour from mangled bodies, skulls reduced to wretched mash which drag themselves in the vain attempt to save the skin. To get a cinematic comparison, I invite you to think about the final massacre of Scarface: here, the tones are even more exasperated here than in the film by De Palma. The artistic direction, capable of mixing the pulp with more than a note of psychedelia, testifies the courage of the indie developers, the only ones currently able to free themselves from the exclusively photorealistic rendering of violence. An expedient for easy controversy becomes here the centerpiece of a mature title (not only as regards the rating). The soundtrack, composed of a fabulous selection of independent tracks ranging from experimental rock to the most pounding beat, further enhances this journey to the underworld. Every single trace frames a particular moment of the plot, a fragment, a detail that becomes so memorable.

Whoever pulls the trigger first will be able to take the leather home ...

Hotline Miami is one of those cases, incidentally quite rare, in which the amalgam of the components is so perfect that analyzing each element individually is even diminishing towards the entire work. It is a sort of neural network: violence, apparently gratuitous, fits perfectly into the playful context and frees it from accusations of morbidity, the deliberately raw, yet refined technical aspect, best expresses the feral tension of every single summary execution. This creates a perfect information exchange system, to the point that by removing one of the joints the whole system ends up collapsing. Hotline Miami strikes viscerally, not only moves the lower instincts, but also triggers reflections of great stature. And this is no small thing.

Lorenzo Baldo has never trusted who wears a mask, first of all who does it in everyday life. And perhaps he is not entirely wrong.