March has roared in like a lion across the US and UK, so hunker down at home (or evacuate) to stay safe and watch Mafia Undercover (if you still have electricity or mobile data service.)
Mafia Undercover (Solo) stars Marco Bocci (Anti-Mafia Squad, Romanzo Criminale) as Marco Pagani, an undercover cop who has infiltrated the Italian Mafia in Rome. Code-named Solo, Marco gets in with the vicious mafioso Bruno Corona (Peppino Mazzotta, almost unrecognizable from his role as Fazio on Detective Montalbano) after the latter’s deal with a Ukrainian arms dealer goes south and Marco gets Bruno our alive, not once but twice.
In between the two incidents, two agents from Interpol show up asking for Marco’s help. They know that Iaccarino (Vincent Riotta, Under the Tuscan Sun), the capo of a large clan in the United States, is headed to Calabria from Istanbul to do a deal with Antonio Corona (Renato Carpentieri, Don Matteo), the head of the Corona family and Bruno’s father. Iaccarino plans to use the port at Gioia Tauro to convey a shipment of drugs from Turkey, the largest one ever headed to the Americas. What Interpol doesn’t know is where or when the deal is going down. If Marco agrees to help them, he can lead the agents to Iaccarino.
So it’s convenient, then, that Bruno needs Marco’s help, too. To keep him nearby, Bruno lets Marco stay at a family-owned beachfront villa in Gioia Tauro, where the Coronas live and operate. The Coronas are a powerful family in the ‘Ndrangheta, one of the world’s most notorious criminal organizations, and they control the port, the largest gateway for illegal trafficking in the Mediterranean.
But after the death of “the guarantor,” the capo of the Gargano clan who kept the peace among the families, the Garganos tell the Coronas they want a piece of the port, and the Coronas are having none of it. There’s an ambush followed by retribution —the start of a war between the two families. And Marco is in the thick of it, being forced to be as murderous as the people he’s trying to bring down in order to maintain his cover and their trust.
Meanwhile, Marco’s colleague and girlfriend Barbara (Diane Fleri, I liceali) is worried, not just for her amore’s safety but also for herself and their relationship, because she’s seen him with Bruno’s headstrong and attractive sister Agata (Carlotta Antonelli, Suburra: The Series), not once but twice.
In the scheme of things, this is the least of Marco’s concerns. Someone has learned his true identity, and they’re about to make a lot of money by revealing it to Bruno…
So ends the first feature-length episode of the four-part first season. (The second is slated to premiere in Italy this year.) So far, it’s a slow burn, but when action sequences happen, they are packed with shoot-’em-up violence.
The miniseries features Federico Tocci (Suburra: The Series), Pier Luigi Misasi (The Homicide Squad), Max Mazzotta (Palermo Connection), Francesco Acquaroli (Suburra: The Series), and Marcello Mazzarella (Nero Wolfe).
Mafia Undercover is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Instant Video in the US and in the UK. It will also begin airing on Eurochannel starting Tuesday, March 27, at 9 PM ET.
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