Witness to the Mob

While arguably not as good as his book or podcast, Witness to the Mob is still a good adaptation of the life of Sammy Gravano.

An all-star cast comprised of the actors that basically acted in every mafia flick in that era, who most people will recognize from the Sopranos. Nicholas Turturro's acting skills are decent enough, but looks nothing like "the Bull." Not exactly a neutral telling of these events either, since this is adapted from his autobiography. Even taking those into account, this is still a decent-to-good film.

If you want Sammy's side of the story in movie form, this is pretty good, personally.

I see lots of good reviews having good points and people downvoting them, perhaps because of the lack of information on the life of Sammy the Bull and Gotti.

This is a good film. It's not Goodfellas, it's not Casino, it's not all the major mafia movies, because this one doesn't rely so much on the violence they did, not even compared with Gotti since it presents us with a different view of the scene, more from the perspective of Sammy.

Everyone talks about the cast. Yes, an amazing cast, most of them being later cast in The Sopranos (Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico, Vincent Pastore, Lenny Venito, Kathrine Narducci, Frankie Valli, Arthur J. Nascarella, Richard Bright, John Cenatiempo, Steven Randazzo, Paul Borghese, Sam Coppola, Garry Pastore) others in Goodfellas (Michael Imperioli, Vincent Pastore, Tony Sirico, Johnny Williams, Debi Mazar), others in Gotti (Vincent Pastore, Toni Sirico, Frank Vincent) and even from The Godfather (Richard Bright, Abe Vigoda) and Frank Vincent who played in Sopranos, Goodfellas, Casino and Gotti. They also played in other mafia movies ass well (A Bronx Tale, The Alto Knights, The Irishman, American Gangster, Capone, Live by Night, Boardwalk Empire, Tulsa King, The Family and many more) . We also got actors who played in the HBO amazing series OZ (namely Kirk Acevedo, Richard Bright and Peter Appel) and a lot of them who played in Law & Order.

Now that I made your head spin with all the names of the actors (no, not all, just made a selection) lets talk about the movie itself.

And the first thing I want to specify is that the movie is NOT based on Sammy's book, but on court records, FBI transcripts and news reports, as Wikipedia states (maybe not the best source). But that doesn't make it less true, the movie is actually quite on point with the real events and portrays them well, without the need of much Hollywood drama. Sometimes, reality beats film.

Now the comparison with Gotti (1996). Armand Assante made a great job portraying Gotti, but so did Tom Sizemore. However, between Nicholas Turturro and William Forsythe portraying Sammy, I definitely prefer Turturro as he gets closer to the real Sammy, even though here he seems to be a little too soft compared to the real guy. As for Gotti, he wasn't that smart in reality as he is depicted in both of these movies. Also, it's more realistic than HBO's Gotti. Both are great movies however and it's hard for me to decide which one's better.

I really don't understand the small rating (6.7) on IMDb. We got a well documented movie with a great cast, good story, good lines, good cinematography and everything, and it gets 6.7 rating, while The Last Don (1997) has a rating of 7.1, The Many Saints of Newark has 6.3, The Valachi Papers has 6.4, Live by Night has 6.4 and last but not least, Tulsa King has 8.0. These productions were awful compared to Witness to the Mob and they had very little to do with reality (except Valachi Papers). I guess people like the Hollywood drama more than reality, or are not very knowledgeable about the reality of the Cosa Nostra. But even as a movie production, leaving aside the reality checks, it's still very well produced. I just don't get it.

I wish I wrote this review right after I watched it or while watching it, since there's a lot going on in the movie but I can't go again watching a 3 hour movie and taking notes. You just have to see it and make your own opinion.

I saw this movie when I happened to catch it on CBS a few years back. I only saw part of it but I have always liked the subject since I was eight years old. I recently bought a copy and it has become one of my favorite films. The acting is good and they really did a magnificent job on casting, costumes, and locations. I thought Turturro's role was fantastic and Sizemore didn't do badly either though I think Assante was more realistic in Gotti. I would have liked to have seen Turturro as Gravano in Gotti it would have been a real treat to see him and Armand square off. This movie captures the backstabbing, badmouthing, lying, rip offs, and betrayal that goes on in the mob families just like Donnie Brasco did the only difference being that this was no "crazy messed up love story" as Depp put it. This is a movie that bluntly depicts the merciless killing of so called friends and the treacherous deceit that follows without any hint of feelings or "real" friendship as he would have you believe. Turturro's Gravano is a detached and pitiless killer who is as bad as the people he whacks and his rise like Gotti's is as meteoric as his fall. This film leaves you asking Gravano this question: If you killed cheaters, double crossers, dope heads, and people who broke the rules shouldn't you have been killed too? Witness to the mob gives you both sides of the story and lets you make the call.

As someone who is borderline obsessed with the Gotti/Gravano story, I have read nearly every book, and seen nearly every movie and documentary on the subject. That being said, I feel this film is vastly superior to HBO's "Gotti", not only in production value but in taking less liberties with the story. The movie pretty much follows Sammy the Bull's book "Underboss" to a T. I feel this is pretty accurate, except it portrays Sammy as too much of a saint. "Gotti" does the same for John Gotti, of course, and it also shows Sammy to be kissing John's ass a little too much. The production, costumes, acting, music, and attention to detail are all far superior in this film.

As far as the acting goes, Nick Turturro does a good job as Sammy, although he's a little too stocky and way too dark-skinned. Sizemore is excellent as Gotti, his performance probably at least equaling Armand Assante's portrayal in "Gotti". I much prefer Abe Vigoda here as Paul Castellano to the actor who played him in the other film, and one of my favorite actresses, Debi Mazar does fine as Sammy's wife Debra. The rest of the cast are mostly Sopranos actors, many of whom played different parts in "Gotti". Michael Imperioli, who wasn't in the other film, does a fine job here as Sammy's longtime friend Louie Milito.

All in all, this is certainly no "Goodfellas" but in my opinion is still very good and much better (and more accurate) than "Gotti".

All in all Witness to the Mob is superior to the HBO fairy tale called Gotti - but the former fails at what the latter did right: the portrayal of Sammy Gravano. Strangely, it seems that most filmmakers think they need a hero or at least a resemblance thereof. In HBO's Gotti it was Gotti, a charismatic, smart leader with comprehensible morals, whose downfall was the egoism of his underlings. In WttM, Sammy the Bull is portrayed as a misunderstood, dutiful voice of reason and overall goody two-shoes. Both portrayals are as far from the truth as it gets.

WttM shows Gotti the way he was: an egomaniacal braggart with delusions of grandeur. (I am at a loss as to how some folks can criticize Sizemore's take on Gotti which unlike Assante's is very close to the original.) A blend of these two movies would yield *the* authoritative adaptation of the subject. In direct comparison, though, WttM takes less liberties with the story, which is why I vastly prefer it over HBO's version.

On its own WttM is a very enjoyable LCN movie - even more so for those who are interested in the subject, provided they can generously overlook the factual inaccuracies.