THE GOTTI MOVIE (2018): “We’re Going to Take Over F-ing Hollywood” (NY Magazine, 2012)

The 2018 “GOTTI” movie was a trainwreck. A complete disaster. The team behind it took the legendary story of John Gotti — The Dapper Don — The Teflon Don — the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family and somehow made it boring.

“The movie is terrible,” said its own director, Kevin Connolly, when reflecting on it in 2022 on his Kevco Podcast.

Before it went into production (in Cincinatti) in 2016, a fascinating, 4,926-word feature story was written about the misadventure of making it in New York Magazine, in 2012, by Steve Fishman. The title of it was:

We’re Going to Take Over F—ing Hollywood

Armed with the story of the Teflon Don, John Gotti Jr. and his new crew are trying to make the movie business an offer it can’t refuse.

It’s available to read here: https://nymag.com/news/features/john-gotti-jr-2012-9/

A choice excerpt from it:

Gotti heard that movie producers were going to try to muscle in on his territory, make a movie about his father. That’s when he realized he had to make that movie himself. It made perfect sense—Hollywood has always been Mafia heaven—and how different were the mob and Hollywood, after all? Both in the Mafia and in the ­movies, a bloodthirsty boss could be a man of honor.

“It’s a fascinating story,” Gotti says, as if pitching the picture to me. “It’s an opportunity to say, ‘Look at the street life.’” He pierced the air with a thick finger. “People don’t see the pain. They don’t see my mother, 23 years without my father. They don’t see my wife without me. They don’t see houses and buildings that were taken from me. Businesses that were taken from me. They don’t see the price that we had to pay, the tolls that were taken on my children. They don’t see any of it. I think the movie will help me … because it’s an explanation.”

I was on the set for the two days of re-shoots for the film in New York in February 2017. I had a small part in it as a U.S. Marshal. I know a lot about what went on behind the scenes of the film.

From what I understand, the New York Magazine story was true. Kevin Connolly’s explanation of the film on his podcast in 2022 also rings true.

However: Perhaps the movie would have lived up to its massive potential if, instead of John Gotti Jr. portraying himself as a victim, and saying:

“They don’t see houses and buildings that were taken from me. Businesses that were taken from me. They don’t see the price that we had to pay, the tolls that were taken on my children. They don’t see any of it. I think the movie will help me … because it’s an explanation.”

Perhaps the movie would have truly been a blockbuster if it had shown all the money, property, and businesses John Gotti Jr. took from others. If it showed the price other people and their children had to pay as a result of him taking advantage of, bullying, robbing, assaulting, exploiting, and extorting people weaker than him, and getting away with it, in so many cases, only because of who his father was.

Perhaps that’s what the movie really should have been about, as that hasn’t been shown on the big screen before.

Instead of portraying John Gotti Jr. as a victim, perhaps the film should have profiled his many victims, and that a driving factor in the FBI pursuing him for years was because they had interviewed so many of his victims, and some of their stories nauseated some of the Agents on his tail.

That being said– perhaps it also should have shown the January 18, 2005 proffer session he had with Federal Prosecutors and an FBI Agent where he provided information to the Government. Against accused high-ranking Italian organized crime figures — including his own father, John Gotti Sr. — and their alleged involvement in numerous murders.

According to the FBI-302 report documenting the meeting, pictured above, he even provided information against a former New York City Police Detective who, according to Gotti Jr., took bribes from the Gambino family in the 1980s to shield him from a murder investigation for the 1983 stabbing death of Danny Silva, reportedly 24, where Gotti Jr. was a suspect. According to Gotti Jr., the Detective even provided information that assisted in the 1984 murder of the young witness, John Cennamo, who fingered Gotti Jr. in the killing.

According to Gotti Jr., the murder of Cennamo, reportedly 22, was ordered by his father, John Gotti Sr., and staged to look like a suicide by hanging.

Imagine if that was in the movie?