Johnny Stecchino

Dante drives a school bus for disabled children in Rome; he is kind, naive and has an odd habit of stealing bananas wherever he sees them. A woman named Maria seduces him and takes him to her house in Palermo. Dante thinks it is love. The truth is that he is the double of Johnny Stecchino, her mafioso husband in hiding, and she is using him as bait to get him killed. Roberto Benigni wrote, directed and played both parts. Nicoletta Braschi plays Maria. It opened in Italy on 24 October 1991 and took 39 billion lire domestically, making it the highest-grossing film in Italian cinema to that date. The posters had Benigni holding a bunch of bananas, a nod to Dante's habit and the film's best-known image. It is while trying to steal one that the mob mistakes him for Stecchino in the first place. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian popular comedy and Benigni's physical work. Who it is not for: anyone who finds the mistaken-identity template thin. The film turns one joke for two hours, and how Maria is drawn is uncomfortable now.