Johnny Stecchino is the story of Dante (Roberto Benigni), a sweetly naive man who lives in Florence and works as a schoolbus driver. His life changes when he meets Maria, the wife of an infamous mafia boss, Johnny Stecchino. Maria sees that Dante is practically Stecchino's twin and attempts to set him up while the real Stecchino is in hiding. Dante falls in love with Maria and will do anything for her, blinding him to what is really going on. Laugh-out-loud funny (and extremely silly) this movie is a lot of fun to watch.
In The Monster, Benigni plays Loris, a petty thief who lives in his own bizarre world. After a set of funny and unlucky coincidences, the police come to believe he is the serial killer who has been terrorizing a town with bizarre sexual murders. Nicoletta Braschi plays a police woman who seduces Loris in order to get him to admit his crimes. This leads to a series of comic misadventures. For example, while trying to get a mannequin into the back of a truck, the police see him and think he is doing something quite different to the poor mannequin, one of the strangest and funniest movie scenes I have ever seen.
These films aren't for everyone. I don't usually like slapstick comedy, but sometimes, as is the case with these two films, I can't help but laugh. Some of the comedy might be over the heads of non-Italians, but for the most part these movies speak to a universal comic sense. They don't have the cultural significance of Life Is Beautiful, but without them, that film could never have been made. Benigni took his comic talents, molded them together with his dramatic vision, and brought us one of the greatest, most moving, films ever made.
Both The Monster and Johnny Stecchino can usually be found at the local video store.
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