Gotti

Starring: John Travolta, Spencer Rocco Lofranco, Kelly Preston, Pruitt Taylor Vance, William DeMeo, Chris Kerson, Stacy Keach, Leo Rossi
Directed by: Kevin Connolly
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: John Gotti (John Travolta) rises to infamy in the crime world.

Review:

Tim: I don't know Kevin Connolly, other than apparently he was on "Entourage", a show I never watched. I also didn't know he was a director, and watching Gotti, I suspect I know why. Maybe he has talent behind the camera, but none of it was on display here. This movie follows one of the most notorious crime bosses in American history and it's presented in a shockingly flat way. I don't know if I ever felt engaged in this film. I'm not sure where things started going wrong, but a lot of them did here.

This movie felt like a complete rehash of dozens of similar movies. I don't know if I saw a single thing here that felt original or even remotely unique. It felt like Connolly was directing a movie by-the-numbers. Gotti had a pretty intriguing life with quite a few ups-and-downs, so there's no excuse for such a bland movie as this. Among the many, many issues I had with the film is the non-linear storytelling format. I have no idea why they elected to use this. We jump back-and-forth in time and it never feels like it serves any purpose, other than someone thought it would be a cool idea. It isn't handled well, so it creates this disjointed feeling that prevents the film from ever gathering any momentum. We're not particularly intrigued by anything we see on screen because we're already given pieces of the puzzle for the end of Gotti's life. Rather than telling a story that built, this leaping around cuts the film's legs out from under it. It was one of many bad decisions.

I suppose the cast is okay, but not much more than that. It certainly felt like John Travolta showed up, thinking this was an Oscar chance for him. He plays Gotti at various different life stages and he's certainly convinced his performance is noteworthy. While I thought Travolta was fine, I didn't see anything remarkable about what he did. There's been dozens of movies like this and dozens of actors have given more compelling performances in the lead role. There were moments when I was just rolling my eyes at Travolta's performance. I wasn't sure if it was the stale dialogue or Travolta's delivery (probably both), but there are some scenes where his performance just doesn't work. I thought Kelly Preston was completely forgettable in this film. I'm not sure I even recognized her, her contribution to the film is that minimal. Pruitt Taylor Vance had a few nice moments, as did Stacy Keach, but their contributions aren't nearly enough. I'm still not sure what I think about Spencer Rocco Lofranco. This should have been a star-making turn for him. I admit he had some strong moments throughout the film. He seems to rise to the occasion this role required, at times. However, as a whole, he made surprisingly little impact on me. I didn't find his character all that interesting and I didn't really care about him at all. Lofranco deserves some of the criticism there, although Connolly and the script deserve heaps of blame, too. The rest of the cast felt too cliched to be very good.

Now, the movie is never as compelling as it needed to be, but there's still some entertainment to be had from the film. Gotti lived a life unlike most Americans and I derived some level of enjoyment of living vicariously through this film. We never dive deep enough into his psyche, but I learned some things about his life. I wish the movie explored the crime business more. It felt like it didn't do enough to set up the players and the events that took place. Still, I was interested in discovering what happened to Gotti and how he ended up where we see him in the later sequences.

Gotti is a film that is rife with flaws and never makes much of an impact. I was pretty surprised how bad a film this turned out to be. Gotti might have been a terrible person, but even he deserved a better movie than this.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Gotti (1996), Mad City, Get Shorty