Rent Gotti (2018)

Nowhere near as bad as it has been portrayed - Gotti review by TB

The first things I heard about Gotti were all negative. The critical pile-on, with many reviewers proclaiming it to be one of the worst films ever made; the 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes and the connected fall-out. To me this was quite strange, because unlike a film like Dirty Grandpa (which got bad reviews and with good reason,) there was almost nothing in the story which would warrant that kind of derision. And notable film critics like Mark Kermode have acknowledged that there is this kind of perceived action by them, even though he disagrees with it.

But I was curious to see what the fuss was about, so I rented Gotti and watched it with a friend of mine, who also like me has strong opinions on films and doesn't appreciate rubbish. And by the end of it, we both had the same reaction: to say that this is one of the worst films ever made is idiotic. It absolutely is not. You can lament the fact that it is in many ways a copy of Goodfellas and doesn't do anything new with the genre, or that if it had been made when Joe Pesci was the lead and Scorsese was muted to direct, the result would have been quite different.

But this is a solid 3 star film, which was never boring, with a cast who were absolutely committed to what they were doing. I thought Travolta was really good as Gotti and from a behind-the-scenes viewpoint, he poured vast amounts of his own money into the project, such was his belief in it. His real-life wife Kelly Preston played his on screen wife, and the chemistry was great between them.

There was plenty wrong with the film, I don't shy away from saying that, but nothing which warranted the reaction it got. For me the most unedifying point was the end credits, where news footage was played with people lamenting the passing of what was a violent and nasty man who caused huge problems and carnage in his community.

The fairest thing I can say about this film is that it is great for a Friday night, when you get a takeaway and want to watch something which doesn't require too much attention, has some laughs, then at the end you think "Yeah, that was worth a look."

Gotti - Gotti review by jezza

I received the same copy of Gotti four times, from CinemaParadise. Each time the copy would not play. But they kept sending the same DVD back to me.

When it was obviously damaged. Do not hire this film fom CinemaParadise.

Mess - Gotti review by NI

This had most of the elements of a very good film but it's pretentious structure spoiled it. Travolta was good - as an actor but not a director. Bring back chronological order!

Terrible - Gotti review by WA

2 stars as John T actually physically resembles the character he is playing. But that's it. I'm a fan of "underworld" movies: Godfather etc. sadly Gotti comes across as a mess of a story: just a series of apparently unrelated set pieces with little or no character development, left me sitting looking at my watch wondering how much longer I had to endure. Not recommended.