Mafioso tells the story of an upwardly mobile Sicilian who rediscovers his roots and is almost strangled by them. It's also an Italian-made Mafia movie, revived from a small U.S. release in 1964, and it definitely earns a place in the vast big-screen literature about the mob.

Filmed in black and white, Mafioso is an odd and even ungainly concoction: Director Alberto Lattuada often works against the movie's bluntly serious title, allowing robust humor to mix with darker undercurrents.

Mafioso opens in a vast Fiat factory in Milan. The wheels of industry are turning, and lots of folks evidently are reaping the rewards. Among them: Antonio Badalamenti (Alberto Sordi), a manager at the plant. Antonio walks the factory floor with an air of pride and self-importance.

We quickly learn that Antonio's a Sicilian who's making it in the North. He's married to a northerner, has two daughters and seems well on his way to cementing a place in the middle class.

But the movie isn't about moving up; it's about sliding back, and it begins in earnest when Antonio decides to take his wife (Norma Bengell) and two daughters to Sicily to meet his family. The trip immediately sets up a tension that's not entirely apparent to the ebullient and naive Antonio. He won't dwell on the fact that his Northern wife initially feels out of place in Sicily. He's a walking mass of denial.

Sordi, who at any moment looks as if he's going to burst with joy, takes Antonio's zealous homecoming over the top. He creates a character who's almost buffoonish, and the movie begins to take on the boisterous feel of a comedy of manners.

Lattuada, who takes his time getting to the picture's mobbed-up denouement, revels in his view of a small Sicilian town and the characters who occupy it - Antonio's hot-tempered father, his retiring but keenly judgmental mother, the sister who's embarrassed about her mustache, Antonio's boyhood chums who have grown into chiding men.

Eventually, Antonio comes under the sway of Don Vincenzo (Ugo Attanasio) and winds up being used in a way that will change his life.

Soft-spoken and persuasive, Don Vincenzo might be able to convince you that jumping off a bridge could be of enormous benefit to you. Attanasio brings a quiet gravity to the proceedings, as Don Vincenzo and his cohorts make a mockery of Antonio's bonhomie and preposterous optimism.

Mafioso doesn't have the violent grace of a Godfather movie - Lattuada allows the story to lurch forward in ways that can seem abrupt - but the film's overall impact is greater than you might expect from the way it plays minute by minute.

I can't say more, but I will say this: If you love mob movies, Mafioso is a must.

Mafioso

A Sicilian rediscovers his roots.

• Grade: B+

• Unrated

• Running time: 99 minutes