Yes, a Great Crime Mystery Italian done american style and a psycho thriller with Palmaesque luscious visuals.
Even if more like a mainstream psycho crime movie than a Neo-giallo i really liked this film, and much more so than the director's earlier 2000 effort
the Psycho crime thriller "Almost Blue". The director has found his style here but the main reason i find this film to be so entertaining, that is -
Margherita Buy as police inspector Lucia Allesco. She's amazing, i love her as the tired and grumpy crime cop.What a fine actress.

Popular now internationally is Nordic Noir with lots of tired and grumpy crime cops, so why not Italian Noir with Margherita Buy in a for-ever
going Crime TV series as a tired and grumpy cop ?

Il Siero della vanità has a great intense opening scene when the police is about to storm a room with an ongoing hostage situation in it.
Things go wrong and policewoman Lucia (Buy) barely survives and ends up with a destroyed leg and a limp.

Two years later Lucia is semi-retired but is asked by her ex-husband crime cop to help with the investigation of a case where a professor
has gone missing. Sonia Norton (Francesca Neri) has a trashy TV show á la the US one Jerry Springer (once had) where the invited guests
as well as the audience can scream at each other and act in a dumb-assity way. After one of the guests, a Professor Benda (Marco Giallini),
has been humiliated by Sonia-on Live TV he's stabbed with a syringe on his way home, and goes missing.
Then others go missing, as i.a. Azzurra (Barbora Bobulova), an ex-Miss Italy and a cokehead. Will Lucia and her police buddy Franco
(Valerio Mastandrea) be able to connect the dots and solve the case ?

This Italian DVD presents the film in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and with Italian 5.1 or 2.0 audio with english subtitles.
Extras: Film Dossier: Behind the Scenes (58 minutes, no subs), Chilitta visiti (auditions, 12 minutes, no subs), Fuore tempi, Consigli per
gli aquisti (Deleted scenes 10 minutes, no subs)

I Liked this film a Lot ! Great looking visually and with a stellar performance from Margherita Buy, BUT not very suspenseful, and also a
very fine Soundtrack by rock musician Marco Castoldi or Morgan (and who has a kid with Asia Argento)