Gotti

USA-Canada, 1996

Director: Robert Harmon

Script: Steven Shagan (based on book by Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain)

Cast: Armand Assante (John Gotti), William Forsythe (Salvatore Gravano), Richard C. Sarafian (Paul Castellano), Frank Vincent (Robert Di Bernardo), Anthony Quinn (Aniello Dellacroce), Dominick Chianese (Joe Armone), Vincent Pastore (Angelo Ruggiero), Tony Sirico (Joe Dimiglia)

Music: Mark Isham

Argument

In the 1970s, John Gotti (Armand Assante) was a gangster associated with the faction of Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce (Anthony Quinn) within the Gambino family of the New York Mafia. Gotti usually meets his subordinates at the Ravenite social club on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. Among the men on his crew are his brother Gene and Angelo “Quak-Quak” Ruggiero. One day, Neil Dellacroce visits Gotti at the Ravenite and tells him that Don Carlo Gambino, the capo di tutti capi, wants to talk to him. John and Neil arrive at the house where the old boss resides, and there he, his right arm Paul Castellano (cousin and brother-in-law) and the consigliere Joe “Piney” Armone (Dominic Chianese) are waiting for them. Don Carlo has a job for Johnny-Boy: to liquidate the Irish gangster who killed his nephew in a fight.

After fulfilling the assignment, Gotti’s influence begins to grow in the family. But a soldier who collaborated with him in the elimination of the Irish turns out to be a source of potential problems, due to his too impulsive and indiscreet behavior, influenced by the excessive consumption of cocaine. Gotti decides to get rid of this nuisance. But he does so without the family’s consent. This is a break with the strict rules of the Mafia. Moreover, unlike Gotti (who is still only an “associate”) the soldier was a “made man”, who had undergone the initiation rite of Cosa Nostra. And as if that were not enough, he was a member of the Castellano faction, cousin and brother-in-law of Don Carlo and his designated successor.

According to the laws of the Mafia, John should be executed for having broken the rules in such a flagrant way. But thanks to the intercession of his mentor Dellacroce, one of the underbosses of the family along with Castellano, he is forgiven. He is thus saved from death, but not from prison: shortly afterwards he must go to prison for the murder of the Irishman. He spends a couple of years behind bars, and after serving his sentence he is received by the family as a hero. Now he is “one of us”, a made man (although the initiation rite is not seen in the film).

It is 1976, and old Don Carlo has passed away. Paul Castellano, whom Gotti detests, succeeds him as head of the family. For over a decade, the Gambinos have been made up of two complementary factions (both united thanks to the authority of Don Carlo, but with no good relations between them); that of Neil Dellacroce (to whom Gotti and his family belong) and that of Castellano. While Castellano is in charge of supervising high-level financial operations, white-collar crime (in construction, garbage collection, commissions, etc.); Dellacroce manages the tough guys, the hard guys on the street, and coordinates their extortion operations, armed robberies, hijackings (or hijacking of trucks full of merchandise, etc.). Dellacroce is the boss of the typical gangsters, and Castellano for his part, is more of a businessman (dirty, yes; but office business, which keeps him away from the street world).

There is only one thing that, under Gambino’s guidelines, has always been essential to both factions: No drug dealing. Drug trafficking gets too much attention from the authorities. Buying and selling drugs is a “no go”, a taboo subject, for the uomini d’onore, for the old school Mafia. However, to Gotti’s dismay, several men in his team do not abide by this golden rule, including his own brother. Blinded by greed, Genie and “Quak-Quak” (named for his propensity to talk too much, which is also unacceptable – and can be dangerous – when you’re a member of a secret society) are trafficking huge amounts of heroin, which soon becomes an open secret throughout Brooklyn.

Generally, by this time in the 1970s, drug trafficking was already widespread among the members of the five families, but it was still officially banned by the Commission – although the bosses were generally “tolerant” and looked the other way (the Bonanno’s leader, Carmine Galante, was himself a large-scale drug trafficker, one of the major architects of the “Pizza Connection”). But this policy of turning a blind eye was not practiced by Paul Castellano, who, like his predecessor, was very severe on drug issues. Dellacroce warns Gotti about the danger that hangs over his team if Big Paul finds out, and John warns his people, without this making them change their ways.

In 1980, a tragedy strikes the family. Not Cosa Nostra’s family, the Gambinos, but Gotti’s own family. His son Frank, who was riding his bicycle in the neighbourhood, is hit by a car and dies on the spot. Responsible for this is a neighbor of the Gottis, John Favara. Despite the fact that it is an unfortunate accident, Favara will not be able to escape the gangster’s revenge. One day he is assaulted by his men, including Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who shoot him in retaliation.

By the mid-eighties Gotti has risen from “soldier” to caporegime, or capo. Tensions within the Gambinos escalate, and the two factions (hitherto somewhat complementary) begin to distance themselves. Especially in Gotti’s team, the discomfort over Paul Castellano’s leadership is becoming more and more evident. In 1985, Gotti weaves a conspiracy to eliminate the boss (and replace him). To do so, he conducts “polls” within the family, and manages to gain the support of a significant portion of the other capos, including Sammy Gravano. At the beginning of December, the old and sick Neil Dellacroce, Gotti’s mentor, a kind of father for him in the Mafia, dies. John’s hatred for Castellano grows as Castellano has not come to pay his respects to the late Gambino’s historic underboss, preferring not to attend the funeral.

On December 16, 1985, Big Paul and his faithful lieutenant (underboss and bodyguard) Tommy Bilotti are murdered. Both are shot at as they are getting out of the limousine that had just parked in front of Spark’s Steak House restaurant in Manhattan. Gotti and Gravano supervise the operation from a car across the street. Shortly thereafter, in early 1986, John Gotti is officially appointed as the new head of the Gambino family. The break with the old school Mafia, with Don Carlo´s times, is now total. Sammy Gravano becomes the underboss, and from the old guard only Joe Armone remains, who approved the elimination of Castellano and continues to be the consigliere.

From now on, thanks to his charisma and his peculiar style, Gotti is beginning to become very popular in the media. Because of his expensive custom-made suits, they start calling him “The Dapper Don”. To that nickname a new one will soon be added: “The Teflon Don”, since no case “stuck” to him; he managed to emerge victorious from two trials. The first of the trials, for assaulting a driver in a street dispute; a trivial parking lot issue. The individual in question, called to testify, had no idea who Gotti was at the time of the events. In court, when the judge urged him to point out his assailant, when asked if he recognized him, the poor man, already aware that he was the Gambino boss, replied (fearing for his life) that he “did not remember”, that he had “forgotten everything”. Thus, the boss was acquitted, and the next day the newspapers headlined “I Forgotti”. The second trial, however, was about something far more serious: The prosecutors tried to put the “godfather” behind bars on the basis of the federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), by which the other four families of the New York Mafia had been successfully beheaded: The respective bosses of the Bonanno (Phillip Rastelli), the Genovese (Anthony Salerno), the Lucchese (Anthony Corallo) and the Colombo (Carmine Persico). Paul Castellano was also indicted, but Gotti saved him from jail, as he fell the bullets before the verdict. Now it was Gotti who was facing a trial that was intended to be the continuation of the so-called Commission Case. But he also managed to get off free, thanks to the expertise of his lawyer Bruce Cutler, and was acquitted for lack of evidence.

The agents who day and night surveilled the Gambino leaders, constantly watching over the Ravenite social club and its surroundings, learned that when Gotti and his closest collaborators had to discuss really relevant matters, they went up to an apartment located in the same building, belonging to an old lady, widow of one of Dellacroce’s men. The good lady would go out for a walk and the gangsters would stay there, feeling safe and speaking their minds, describing their business in no uncertain terms. One night, FBI agents installed microphones in the house. From then on, they would listen to the elusive gangster’s conversations, and they would gather enough evidence to bring about their definitive incarceration.

Not everyone was satisfied with Gotti’s leadership. “Piney” Armone, the old consigliere, reproached him for being too “extroverted” towards the media, for his love of the limelight. Eccentricities and attention-seeking are characteristics that may please “the public” but are not well regarded by the taciturn old-school mafiosi (who keep a low profile). This unwise approach can be counterproductive to the safety of the clan. Likewise, the decision to liquidate Castellano was made without the consent of the other four families. So, just as to remove a “soldier” you have to ask the chief’s permission; to “hit” the boss you have to have the agreement of the other four bosses. Therefore, Armone recommends Gotti to “be on guard”. Indeed, not long after, in April 1986, a car bomb aimed at the new Gambino boss blows Frank DeCicco to pieces, one of his closest collaborators. Gotti becomes obsessed with safety, and his eccentric and quarrelsome behaviour is now compounded by paranoia. He sees potential traitors and conspirators everywhere, and orders the murder of several of his men, including Robert “DeeBee” DiBernardo (Frank Vincent), a capo dedicated to the pornography business. “DeeBee” is lured to Sammy Gravano’s office, and while Gravano distracts him by inviting him to coffee, one of his hit men shoots him in the back of the head.

The recordings at the old lady’s house finally pay off. On December 11, 1990, FBI agents break into the Ravenite and arrest Gotti, Gravano and the new consigliere Frank LoCascio. When they hear their own voices, which have been recorded by police microphones in the house the gangsters thought was safe, they know that this time they will not get rid of prison so easily. Sammy Gravano is outraged to hear Gotti on those tapes speaking ill of him behind his back, calling him “greedy”, among other things. The FBI agents and the prosecutor’s office rejoice to see that putting one against the other will be very useful to send Gotti to jail forever…

Commentary

This HBO (Canadian-American) television co-production narrates the rise and fall of John Gotti (1940-2002) based on the script of journalist Jerry Capeci, who specialized in the Italian-American Mafia and managed the website Ganglandnews with weekly updates. In general the film is quite faithful to the real story, and the characters look very credible. Armand Assante brings “Dapper Don” to life with great skill, but what would have been really sensational would have to allow Gotti to get out of jail to play himself. With his love for the cameras and his “audience”, he would surely have been delighted to do so. Aniello Dellacroce is characterized by Anthony Quinn, who in real life was apparently a friend of John Gotti, or at least a supporter of him (as well as actor Mickey Rourke). DiBernardo is played by Frank Vincent, a regular secondary character in gangster movies, who also appears in “Goodfellas” (1990) and “Casino” (1995), both by Martin Scorsese. These two great films, by the way, are far superior to Robert Harmon’s “Gotti” (1996) that we are dealing with, as well as “Donnie Brasco” (1997) by Mike Newell with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, also based on real events (the infiltration of FBI agent Joe Pistone in the Bonanno family). The melancholic melody of the film is good and emotional, but the soundtrack in general (always very important) could be better. Still, “Gotti” is highly recommended and its vision will be especially interesting for lovers of the genre, and for those who have previously read about the intrigues within the New York Mafia, of which John Gotti (the real one) was one of the most important protagonists.

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