Quelli del casco (Die Mopedbande)

**Fast Times at Ridgemont High** in Italian. A group of teenagers spend their time hanging out, going on motorcycle rides, pulling pranks, and trying to uncover the identity of a seductive girl featured on a poster. Luciano Salce’s final film (he passed away in 1989) attempts to capture the youth culture and the changing (and now vanished) Rome of the 1980s.

The result—an eccentric, intriguingly amusing mix of feel-good comedy and mildly vulgar innuendos, peppered with delightful Roman dialect expressions—must be viewed within the context of an era when debates around political correctness and sexism were not taken particularly seriously.

Highly entertaining: character actors Renzo Montagnani as Professor Impallomeni and Paolo Panelli as the doorman, as well as Luciano Salce’s cameo as a bishop. (Alessandra Thiele)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum