A couple of months ago I saw the trailer for Kevin Connolly (Entourage) directed Gotti, starring John Travolta (American Crime Story) as the lead, and I immediately thought of Jared Leto as The Joker in Suicide Squad. The trailer did the actual movie no justice, and made the film look like the bad reviews of it would be justified. However, while Gotti will not make its presence felt during Oscar season, there are certainly worse things you can do with an hour and forty.
Alongside Travolta as Gotti, Kelly Preston (Travolta's wife in real life) stars as his wife Victoria, and Spencer Rocco Lofranco (Unbroken) and Chris Mulkey (Whiplash) hold their own in supporting roles. The movie itself documents Gotti's early beginnings coming up in the Gambino crime family, the death of his son after being hit by a car (Travolta and Preston acting out their grief in these scenes felt very real after the two recently lost a son themselves), and his ultimate incarceration, death, and culminates with the legal troubles of his first born son, John A. Gotti.
The problem with this movie was not its content, which was about average but nowhere near worth the poor reviews it has received thus far. The problem is for starters, there is nothing new to be learned by sitting through this movie. Gotti already had a film in 1996, starring Armand Assante, and it was great. There was virtually no new information from this version which I didn't already know from watching Assante twenty-two years ago. Plus, unless you're Lyndon Baines Johnson (Woody Harrelson in LBJ, Bryan Cranston in All the Way, Tom Wilkinson in Selma, and Liev Schreiber in The Butler all killed, I know this is highly off topic but watch all of these films today, you're welcome) you don't need more than one biopic. I would recommend the original Gotti to this version 10/10 times.
An additional problem with this film is the genre itself, namely the Italian Mafia. In a society where dominating male characters are currently not being heavily shopped the timing of this film seemed off. Also in terms of films depicting the Italian Mafia, there is nowhere to go but down. While loyal fans of the genre like myself wait patiently for the next Goodfellas to hit the screens, or the next Sopranos to grace my television set, there will be dozen's of Gotti's to ultimately come up short. I could be wrong, but it is likely we will be waiting for a long time for the resuscitation this genre of movie desperately needs. Thanks for reading.
Alongside Travolta as Gotti, Kelly Preston (Travolta's wife in real life) stars as his wife Victoria, and Spencer Rocco Lofranco (Unbroken) and Chris Mulkey (Whiplash) hold their own in supporting roles. The movie itself documents Gotti's early beginnings coming up in the Gambino crime family, the death of his son after being hit by a car (Travolta and Preston acting out their grief in these scenes felt very real after the two recently lost a son themselves), and his ultimate incarceration, death, and culminates with the legal troubles of his first born son, John A. Gotti.
The problem with this movie was not its content, which was about average but nowhere near worth the poor reviews it has received thus far. The problem is for starters, there is nothing new to be learned by sitting through this movie. Gotti already had a film in 1996, starring Armand Assante, and it was great. There was virtually no new information from this version which I didn't already know from watching Assante twenty-two years ago. Plus, unless you're Lyndon Baines Johnson (Woody Harrelson in LBJ, Bryan Cranston in All the Way, Tom Wilkinson in Selma, and Liev Schreiber in The Butler all killed, I know this is highly off topic but watch all of these films today, you're welcome) you don't need more than one biopic. I would recommend the original Gotti to this version 10/10 times.
An additional problem with this film is the genre itself, namely the Italian Mafia. In a society where dominating male characters are currently not being heavily shopped the timing of this film seemed off. Also in terms of films depicting the Italian Mafia, there is nowhere to go but down. While loyal fans of the genre like myself wait patiently for the next Goodfellas to hit the screens, or the next Sopranos to grace my television set, there will be dozen's of Gotti's to ultimately come up short. I could be wrong, but it is likely we will be waiting for a long time for the resuscitation this genre of movie desperately needs. Thanks for reading.