When you watch “Mixed by Erry” — it’s adorable, so you should — don’t opt for the English dubbed option on Netflix. Take it in via its native tongue — Neopolitan Italian.

Few movies make it clearer that Italian is the language — hand gestures included — of negotiation, bargaining, hustling, of irritation, panic and pathos. You’re cheating yourself of some of the fun by dodging the subtitles that come with this most musical of the Romance languages.

“Mixed” is the story of three young brothers from Naples who built the second largest record distributor in Italy during the ’80s, surfing the musical curve between New Wave and the New Romantics. And we’re halfway through the story of their unlikely rise to fame and riches before someone uses the word we now know is shorthand for the theft of intellectual property like books, movies, programs and music — “Pirati!”

That’s right, the Frattasio Brothers, the pride of rough and tumble Forcello, the “fell off a truck” district of Naples, were the kings of music piracy during the Golden Age of the Cassette.

Hey, one guy’s “mixtape” is another guy’s under-the-table bargain. “Dimenticallo,” as they say in old Italy. “Fuggedaboutit.”

Sydney Sibilia, who made the equally charming and roguish “Rose Island” a few years back, tells another “true story” of Italian rascals, kids raised by their pops (Adriano Pantaleo) to make a dishonest lira.

Peppe, Angelo and Enrico, aka “Erry,” knew playing with their friends had to end when Mama (Cristiana Dell’Anna) called out, “Time to make the tea.”

Papa was bringing home empty Jack Daniels bottles to refill, and you had to brew the tea just right to match the patina of fine Tennessee whisky in the bottles, which their father would hustle in the open air market next to the train station.

But Enrico dreams bigger than that. He’s obsessed with music, and parlays that into a job at the local record shop. Years later, in 1985, Erry (Luigi D’Oriano) wants to use that encyclopedic knowledge to become a club DJ. All he lacks are the looks, swagger and charisma to pull that off.

It’s his memory for tunes, ear for the Next Big Thing and ability to gauge someone’s tastes by what they’re listening to now that will change their lives. Nobody is better at whipping up romantic, dance, etc. mixtapes than Erry. When the record store closes, he wonders if he can make a living selling those hand-labeled, curated “hits” packages to customers looking for cheap tunes. .

Hustler Peppe (Guiseppe Arena) crunches the numbers and doesn’t see that as a shady business model that works. But his new bride (Chiara Celotto), won over by the mixtape Erry made for Peppe, has heard of this fast-duplicator machine that’s revolutionized the tape business in that pre-digital age.

A visit to their local loan shark, and they’re up and running. When Peppe recruits his fellow cigarette smugglers to “change with the times” and hustle their wares, they have “distribution.”

And when older brother Angelo (Emanuele Palumbo) gets out of prison after hospitalizing a bully beating up Erry, they have their prison-polished “muscle.” The Frattasio Brothers are ready to conquer Naples, Italy and the world, a million “mixtape” cassettes at a time.

Francesco Di Leva plays the obsesssed financial crimes cop who can’t get any Naples prosecutor interested in cracking down on this crime. Until, that is, the brothers start releasing tapes of performances of the big Sanremo Song festival before it’s aired on TV.

“Pirati!” they yell.

The soundtrack — mixed, apparently, by the real life “Erry” — is peppered with the Euro-pop of the era — Kim Wilde to Eurythmics to early hip hop and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The leads are lightly amusing, with young D’Oriano giving off strong Jay Baruchel energy.

“Mixed by Erry” isn’t an awards contender, just a fun bit of history engagingly related. It’s the situations and the story — told at a bouncing, reasonably brisk pace with just enough voice-over narration to let us keep up — that make this movie.

Scared to death meeting the loan shark, overwhelmed when the big cassette manufacturer wines and dines them, buying a Lambourghini with their illicit cash, Erry wooing the music-loving customer Teresa (Greta Esposito) with his “I know what you’d like” (in Italian with subtitles, or dubbed) superpower, reveling at their peak but seeing the writing on the wall even then — it all plays.

And as anybody who ever made a mixtape knows, it’s not just the perfect songs that make it, it’s the order they’re played in. Sibilia, framing the story as a flashback from prison, gets that and once again delivers.

Ben fatto, signore. Ben fatto.

Rating: TV-MA, some violence, profanity

Cast: Luigi D’Oriano, Giuseppe Arena, Emanuele Palumbo, Chiara Celotto, Greta Esposito, Adriano Pantaleo and Francesco Di Leva

Credits: Directed by Sydney Sibilia, scripted by Armando Festa and Sydney Sibilia. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:49