Here is an Italian buddy comedy with a message: a message that had me rolling my eyeballs and impatiently checking my watch. Four oddball numskulls decide, after one meeting, to buy equal shares in a fixer-upper holiday resort. They proceed to fend off the local mafia while improbably working out differences and achieving financial success. It sounds like a passable plot, but Noi e la Giulia is a wannabe dramedy that’s dead in the water.

First off, the humour is dull, lacking any semblance of wit (and I doubt any laughs were lost in English translation, either). The actors toil with the material but none, save Claudio Amendola as the gruff communist, manage to elevate the script above its limited station. The truth is these characters are painfully one-dimensional and constructed as dichotomous foils to one another (which is a cheap tactic to generate laughs). The film also sports a troubling attitude toward racism. Suffice to say: eyebrows were raised.

Admittedly, capturing ‘Camorra’ foot soldiers and locking them in the basement is a funny idea, but this – and other promising elements – is squandered utterly with inept writing and drab direction. The film has good intentions but my advice: stay away!