Review of Gotti (2018) by Chris P — 05 Oct 2018

Not a great film or even a very unique one, but certainly not as horrendous as the critics would have you believe, Gotti took 8 years, 44 producers and 4 directors to reach the big screen, and it shows.

The film never feels coherent, jumping around between different time frames for no good reason. Many scenes feel like they were directed by different people and the end result is like a quilt assembled by 40+ people, stitched together in a seemingly random manner.

Travolta's performance is far from his best, but I really admired how much he invested in the character, how much he threw himself into the scenes and how he never appears to be slacking. Its just a shame that the script gives him nothing to do other than cycle through all the typical gangster clichés.

There's nothing here you won't have seen in films like The Godfather and Goodfellas. In fact the gunning down of Gotti's boss looks suspiciously similar to Vito Corleone's attempted assassination in the former.

It's not terrible, but it never aspires to any kind of grandeur or profundity, content instead with being a collection of foul-mouthed gangsters saying and doing lots of very typical gangster things.

I think the critical drumming was a little harsh, and it's not by any means the worst film I've seen this year, or even this month, but unless you have an interest in John Gotti and his criminal legacy, there's not much here to recommend.