Review of Gotti (2018) by Stjude_Bruh — 09 Jul 2018

If you check the review site Rotten Tomatoes or follow any news related to John Travolta (which at this point no one would), then you probably heard of the movie Gotti. It has become a little notorious for being the latest film to receive a rare 0% out of 38 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. That means that no reviewer had anything good to say about the movie. Even with the horrible reviews, I was intrigued to see it to make use of my MoviePass subscription before the company fades away. Maybe the movie would be so bad it would be good. That is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot, but it did not apply to this movie. The movie was quite bad, but it certainly wasn't trash.

The comparison between the Rotten Tomatoes score and how I perceived the movie continue to support my idea that I cannot trust Rotten Tomatoes. I have explained this before in depth so I will not waste time again. The movie may be bad, but it definitely doesn't deserve an equivalent of 0 out of a possible score of 10. Even the average rating that it received, a 2.3/10, is too low in my opinion. Sure, the main aspect of a movie's goodness was the worst part about this film, but there were definitely redeeming qualities that keep it from being pure trash.

I will first begin by going into detail the main reason why this film was so critically panned, and why I myself couldn't like it very much. The directing was truly horrible, as there is no sense to time and how fast the events of John Gotti's life are moving. The movie feels as if multiple scenes were filmed with occurring simultaneously, yet they were cut-and-paste together using Windows Movie Maker. This is the first movie for director Kevin Connolly of Entourage fame, which shows. Not all actors can go into directing just because of Hollywood experience, and he should never direct a movie ever again. Along with the pacing of the film, moments that bring it down include the cheesy movie score that sounds like it was made using sound effects from a keyboard, some of the try-hard acting, and all the common mafia-movie tropes that this film fails to improve on. I almost forgot to mention that Pitbull made some music for the film, and in some party scenes that were set in the 1980s and 90s, they were playing Pitbull songs made in the 2010s. This was a truly horrible move because it did not fit the time period, and it just added to the movie's dumb moments. Overall, the lack of a fluid storytelling that allows you to feel the changes in time is what drags Gotti.

However, not all is bad with this movie. For once in his long history of terrible movies, John Travolta wasn't one of the worst parts. .

For the most part, the acting was not bad. I've seen much worse from star actors such as Bryce Dallas Howard in Jurassic World and Vin Diesel in Furious 7. John Travolta actually did a good job in his role. He nailed the New-York accent and played his role seriously. With the exception of some exaggerated facial expressions, he did not overact like he has done in other flops. It was interesting to see Gotti on screen because Travolta made his presence feel worthy. The actors who played members of his mafia did a fine job, and the actor who played John Gotti Jr. (Spencer Lafranco) didn't do as bad as critics said. The acting was not the weakness of the film; I was actually still interested in the film because the people did a good job.

This review seems like a defense of the movie, but I want to make clear that it is not. What I do defend is that its not pure trash like critics say it is. The directing may be garbage, and thats the main aspect of what makes a movie good or bad, but the acting and setting isn't. If you don't care about seeing a bad mafia movie, I would say watch it to see just how poorly it stacks up against other great movies in its genre, such as Goodfellas, The Godfather, and A Bronx Tale. I would one day watch it again because I enjoyed Travolta's performance and the setting in New York, along with all the thick accents. However, as a movie reviewer that cares about having you watch a good movie, I say that this movie isn't worth your $20, $!2, $2, or your time.

My overall rating would be a 4.5/10. It's bad, but not pure trash.