GOTTI (1996 film), A movie everyone needs to watch!
The 1996 HBO film GOTTI is one of the best and most realistic Mob movies of all time. When people talk about the great mob movies, The Godfather 1&2 and Goodfellas always comes up first but rarely do people mention this highly underrated movie GOTTI.
Our next episode on That’s enough Outta You podcast surrounds the Murder of Gambino Crime family boss Paul Castellano. In the Episode we discuss this wonderful film. The writing and acting is truly amazing. Three performances stand out from an incredibly talented cast, Armand Assante playing John Gotti, Anthony Quinn playing Aniello Dellacroche, and William Forsythe playing Sammy “the bull” Gravano. Assante earned a primetime Emmy Award, and nominations for Golden Globe award and Screen Actors Guild Award for his amazing performance of Gotti. In Some ways Assante plays Gotti better than the “Dapper Don’ could have played himself. Quinn knocks it out of the park with a realistic portrayal of Dellacroche, the underboss and mentor to Gotti. Forsythe, one of my all time favorite character actors, gives one of his typical fantastic badguy performances as Gravano.
Many actors who would later go on to be in the Sopronos have roles in this film. The success of this film would later lead producers to believe in making the Sopranos, which would go on to be one of the greatest series of all time.
Hollywood, like in all films, takes certain liberties but overall this is pretty realistic. The crazy and gruesome Irish Gang the Westies are not portrayed accurately in this film, and neither are the events surrounding the accidental death of John Gotti’s youngest son Franky. Despite those inaccuracies, this films nails the most accurate portrayal of mobsters ever on film.
IF you have not watched this film yet then you need to go out and see it for yourself. Maybe if they decide to make a part 2, my podcast partner Billy raids will be offered a role. You will understand this reference once our podcast episode airs on May 4th on YouTube and May 5th on Apple, Spotify and all other podcast apps. It is films like this that are missing from the Mob genre today. Like John Gotti said “5-10 years from now they are gonna miss John Gotti”.
