I agree completely with Rusty about the hopelessly glossy treatment of Gotti in "Gotti." Armand Assante played him with far too much intelligence, fairness and business focus. (Tom Sizemore did a much better job as Gotti in "Witness to the Mob," which was otherwise not very good). And it was a real letdown to portray Da Bull as killing Favara with a gun, when the real-life death was more dramatic and tragic. They could just as well have done the right thing. But "Gotti" has some excellent casting, especially Anthony Quinn as Neil Dellacroce, Marc Lawrence as Carlo Gambino and Richard Sarafian as Castellano. I liked Chazz Palmentieri's portrayal of Castellano in "Castellano," but not much else. The Kurins/O'Brien book really trashes him.

boss of bosses was an ok movie, i kinda liked it i rented it a few months ago on dvd. I still havent seen gotti though but i plan too

I saw Boss of Bosses, and I also saw Gotti.

I liked Gotti more than I did Boss of Bosses, one thing Rusty. Calling Gotti a greaseball is low very low.

I happen to admire John Gotti alot.

He can admire who he wants to admire. your happy he is dying? that is low man.

He can admire who he wants to admire. your happy he is dying? that is low man.[/quote]He can hope whoever he wants to die,also.

Your calling me a Dumbass. your a funny guy ButIm not here to fight with your fucking monkey ass ok.

Lets not get into a fight here guys, were all friends here now some people tend to love the bad guys and some people want to see them burn in hell while they listen to an adam sandler cd in a small room consisting of sinbad jokes. But to tell you the truth i love the bad guys, but i still want to see them pay their dues for the bad they have done. So am i glad hes dying? yup. Do i still admire him? Yes.

I apologize to for my outburst yeah you also have a point he was a fucking animal.
so we got things all taking care of thats good.

I feel bad that he is suffering - I don't care who it is. I can't hate the man because he never did anything to me.

As for whether or not he was effective as a leader, I think he is primarily repsonsible for the destruction of the Gambino crime family. Even the FBI and the indictments during the Castellano era wouldn't have brought the family down, or at least not as quickly as Gotti did. He was nothing more than a street punk that couldn't follow orders and was even worse at giving them.

The Gambinos had two wings at the time of Carlo's death: the "white collar" group under Castellano (rackets: construction, trucking, etc.); and the "blue collar" group under Neil Dellacroce (hijacking, loan sharking, drugs). Gotti was with the latter. Under his rule, the white collar was neglected in favor of the blue collar. He and Da Bull had distain for Castellano because they regarded him as a racketeer, while they were real "gangsters." Gotti also was a degenerate gambler.

Hi,
I saw both movies. I also noticed that Gravano was completely omitted from Boss Of Bosses. No mention was made of him. In Gotti, Gravano was played by Bill Forsyth who also played Capone in The Untouchables TV series that aired some years back, Tom Amandes was Eliot Ness. Bill Forsyth stole the show and also was one of the reasons I watched.

Paul