Gotti - Il primo padrino

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.

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.

There's an attempt here to give us a flavour of the life of John Gotti - the Teflon Don; the real-life godfather; the head of the Gambino crime family in New York City. It centres around a visit by John Jr. to his father in prison, as Gotti is dying of cancer and Junior is cutting a deal with prosecutors to serve his time and then get out of the life. And as that encounter progresses, the story of Gotti's "career" and its impact on his real family is revealed as he rose to head of the family.

To be blunt, this isn't a great movie. It paints a picture of life in organized crime, but to me it seemed poorly put together, with no real flow or over-arching narrative; things just being thrown together sometimes with little rhyme or reason. There isn't really much in the way of character development. We get the point that we're watching movie about a bunch of mobsters, but I can't honestly say that I found myself caring much about anyone. The lead role was played by John Travolta. His performance was, I thought, uneven. And the truth is that the movie didn't really hold my attention. There were times when it became little more than background noise because, frankly, it just wasn't that interesting. It desperately needed better pacing, and a better flow to the story. (3/10)

It's bad enough this film took four directors, 44 producers and eight years to make, but then adding actor Kevin Connolly turned novice director, and two novice screenwriters made this film unbearable.

The writing was a hack job and all over the place and the director clearly had issues directing his all-star cast, not to mention his poor choice of camera angles and annoying zoom in's that seemed to be filmed by a 10 year old with a 1990's HandyCam.

The story itself was however very interesting and Travolta and the rest of the cast did the best they could with the convoluted mess the novice film-makers handed them.

It's a very generous 6/10 from me.

A peculiar biography of the infamous New York mobster John Gotti (John Travolta) and his son John Gotti Jr (Spencer Rocco Lofranco) who followed in his father's footsteps .As John Gotti Sr was an American gangster and boss of the Carlo Gambino ( Michael Cipiti) crime family in New York City. Gotti is a good earner and is very close to Neil Dellacroce (Stacy Keach) , the number two man in the family . When Carlo Gambino dies however , his decision to make Paul Castellano the head of the family doesn't sit well with Gotti and others. They all put up with it for several years but eventually , Gotti gets fed up with Castellano and has him killed , making himself head of the family in the process. Becoming boss of what has been described as America's most powerful crime syndicate. He is known as the Dapper Don for his expensive taste in suits, and the Teflon Don because none of the FBI charges against him will stick.

An uneven film dealing John with Gotti (1940 -2002) well played by John Travolta along with his troubled relationships to his beloved son finely acted by Spencer Rocco , his wife -recently deceased Kelly Preston- and his best friend Angelo Ruggiero competently performed by Pruitt Taylor Vince in his usual style . As well as an essential murder , as Gotti ordered and helped to orchestrate the killing of Gambino boss Paul Castellano in December 1985 and took over the family shortly thereafter . At his peak, Gotti was one of the most powerful and dangerous crime bosses in the United States and finally , being convicted in 1992 of racketeering and murder . Then Gotti Sr made his son Gotti Jr the heir-apparent to head the Gambino crime family and attempting to continue his dark legacy , but then things go wrong . The motion picture was regularly directed by Kevin Connolly . There's another and better film concerning this character : Gotti 1996 by Robert Harmon with Armand Assante , William Forsythe , Richard C. Sarafian , Frank Vicent , Anthony Quinn and Dominic Chianese .

The film is based on actual events , these are the following ones : Gotti and his brothers grew up in poverty and turned to a life of crime at an early age . Gotti quickly became one of the crime family's biggest earners and a protégé of Gambino family underboss Aniello Dellacroce, operating out of the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens. Following the FBI's indictment of members of Gotti's crew for selling narcotics, Gotti began to fear that he and his brother would be killed by Castellano for dealing drugs. As this fear continued to grow, and amidst growing dissent over the leadership of the crime family, Gotti organized the murder of Castellano. During his era he became widely known for his outspoken personality and flamboyant style, which gained him favor with some of the general public. While his peers avoided attracting attention, especially from the media, Gotti became known as "The Dapper Don", for his expensive clothes and personality in front of news cameras. He was later given the nickname "The Teflon Don" after three high-profile trials in the 1980s resulted in his acquittal, though it was later revealed that the trials had been tainted by jury tampering, juror misconduct, and witness intimidation. Law enforcement authorities continued gathering evidence against Gotti that helped lead to his downfall. Gotti reportedly earned between $5-20 million per year during his tenure as Gambino boss. Gotti's underboss, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, aided the FBI in finally convicting Gotti. In 1991, Gravano agreed to turn state's evidence and testify for the prosecution against Gotti after hearing the boss making several disparaging remarks about Gravano on a wiretap that implicated them both in several murders. In 1992, Gotti was convicted of five murders, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, illegal gambling, extortion, and loansharking. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole and was transferred to United States Penitentiary, Marion in southern Illinois. While in prison, Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002, at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri . According to former Lucchese crime family boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, what John Gotti did was the beginning of the end of Cosa Nostra.