Gotti

...a better film. But the chosen way to tell the story of Gotti is wrong. It becomes pathetic. John Travolta has, maybe in too much measure, the desire to give the role of his career and the result becomes almost pathetic. Something essential is missing for transform the subject in more than a pledge for a dark hero. Sure, like each film of good intentions, it is a good first step to discover the life and activity of John Gotti. But, after each indulgence nuance, it is clear - it could be a better film.

This chronicles the life of John Gotti (John Travolta) from a ruthless killer to the big mob boss of the Gambino crime family. Victoria (Kelly Preston) is his loyal wife. His son faces prison time of his own.

This is flat. There is little life to these characters. Travolta is doing an impression and I'm torn about his effectiveness. At times, he's doing fine but at other times, he's hamming it up. There is no doubt about the directing from Kevin Connolly. It is at best TV quality. The son is the key to a character based portrayal. Sadly, the kid playing the role is a muscle head and he doesn't have the skills or the experience. He's not given the chance anyways. There is no heart to this material.

Just an FYI any review over a 3 star is fake so after you get done reading the entire fake "Entourage" friend of Mr Director is that is even what you should call him read this real review who knows everything about John Gotti. What you see on screen is a iPhone googled TV script of no substance no direction with nothing new that I have not already heard on A&e or 60 minutes 20 times. I know for sure John Gotti is turning over in his grave from this garbage. If you watched A&E's Godfather and Son then you already saw this movie as this director pretty much sat down with John Gotti Jr or even watched that series and said I can make a movie about this. If you see at the end of that 4 part series you see them on set and you see the director with his IPhone taking to Travolata as I swear he shot this movie from his phone and used movieshop editing app. Travolta does a "nice" job as Junior says. I can't even go on to even waste more time thinking about this junk anymore as from the first minute I wanted leave as every real clip they showed you have seen they show over and over, nothing new. For the music I swear they went thru the list of songs that were cheap and just placed them in there with no meaning or syncope to the scene. Eric do us all a favor and go back to playing Mr Agent in Entourage and please don't get that world confused with the real movie making world and actually think you have a clue of what you were doing out there as the Gambino family Should hun you down for even putting this crap on screen hence the Crapper John tittle.

The filmmakers had absolutely no idea what they wanted out of this movie. You can tell it took 44 producers and 8 years to make. Who was the protagonist? What style did they want to adopt? Is it a documentary? A character piece? A chronology of John Gotti's life? I couldn't tell. There was 4 time lines happening at once. Way to many names and places. It was simply boring and had no suspense. However, Travolta's performance wasn't bad, the script was. He definitly did the best he could with what he was given. Long story short, I have no more affection or knowledge of the Gotti family now than I did before the movie. Go watch the Sopranos instead.

"Gotti" is not as bad as advertised. Do you like John Travolta? If so, this is his picture, and it would have been better if he had more control over it - particularly the editing. "Gotti" does not flow, it is episodic - choppy, as though several Gotti blackouts were slapped together, which offloads suspense and vastly reduces tension. Add to that the random addition of a loud music score. I say 'random' because the music is a bunch of '80's hits which do not provide context and weren't all hits. Plus, the music track was so loud as be intrusive.

Travolta carries the picture, and a big mistake was made in selecting the actor for the Junior Gotti part. Spencer LoFranco makes a nice appearance but lacks acting ability and does this movie no favors. The rest of the cast is good and come off as credible 'gangstas'. It is a good - but not great - picture which relies a lot on dialogue and needed more action and better editing.