Gotti (2018)

No matter how bad a movie is, there will always be someone who enjoys it. The same sure cannot be said about Gotti, as I've read (too) many reviews about it and not a single one was positive. To be more specific, it was described by every single one of them as the worst film of 2018. Of course, this made me curious to see how bad it is and, against everybody's suggestion, I watched it. 

The film is a biopic-pic about New York City mobster John Gotti (John Travolta), who got started in the Gambino crime family in his early teens and quickly worked his way up to become one of the most powerful and dangerous crime bosses in America.

I can't be any more accurate than this with the film's plot as it's hard, if not impossible to tell what the film's plot even is. Actually, I'm not even sure there's one as most of the film is a very tedious, dull summary of John Gotti's life, while the rest is some sort of "John Gotti son is a saint and the prosecutors only wasted public money to bring him down because of his father's crimes" kind of story.

The lack of a focus isn't the worst part though, the storytelling is. I guess the producers didn't agree on how to tell the story so they went with narration, Gotti's, fourth-wall breaks —this is when it tries to be Goodfellas, but while in Scorsese's film it was effective as it shows Henry's detachment to reality, in here it's just annoying as hell—, flashbacks and flashforwards. The result? A confusing and frustrating mess.

Another of Gotti's many issues lays in its characters. First of all, the film submerges us into the Gotti family drama right away, when we know absolutely nothing about the characters and therefore we don't care about them. Second, the characterization is all wrong. I'm pretty sure the Gotti family somehow funded this film, otherwise, how would you explain John Gotti Senior being portrayed as a family man, a faithful husband, a role model of a father, with no vices whatsoever  —I'm having a hard time believing he didn't like alcohol nor cocaine.

Same goes with the son, John Gotti Junior. He is portrayed as an innocent man, a victim of his environment who couldn't help but become the man he became. Which is not entirely true as Gotti Jr. said in an interview that he was in the street life because his father was in it, that if his father one day woke up and decided to leave that world to become a butcher, he would have followed him. Also, this made me realise how much the film fails to deliver on the father-and-son relationship.

Vertical Entertainment, MoviePass Ventures

The acting fits the terrible script like a glove as the only thing Travolta's brilliant performance in American Crime Story has in common with his in here is the arrogance displayed by the character, and Spencer Lofranco, other than being miscast as Gotti Jr., gives an amateurish performance. The rest of the cast is just as bad as they all deliver amateurish and over-the-top performances.

And pretty much everything else about Gotti is terrible. The cinematography is amateurish at best and so is the editing —many cuts and transitions feels weird and don't always make a lot of sense. The music is atrocious as none of the tracks works decently in their scene. Not to mention that at times, mostly because of the weird and out-of-place music, it feels like watching a parody. An unfunny one.

I haven't seen much of Kevin Connolly's acting —He's Just Not That into You is probably the only movie of his I've seen, and I never watched Entourage— but he should probably stick to that because directing clearly isn't for me. I don't know what he thought he was doing, but he sure wasn't directing.

Carrie (1976)

Stephen King's Carrie has been on the shelf, waiting for somebody to read it, for decades (my mother bought it in the 80s and never read it). It was February when I finally decided to read it and, being a King fan, I found it rather disappointing. It wasn't terrible but it sure wasn't great either. I still decided to check out this movie because Brian De Palma directed it and Sissy Spacek plays Carrie, and, like just the book, it was disappointing. 

Brought up by her religious fanatic mother (Piper Laurie) almost in isolation, Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a shy 17-year-old whose classmates constantly makes fun of. When she gets her first period, she is teased by the girls more than before and the gym teacher (Betty Buckley) disciplines the girls severely. One of them, Sue Snell (Amy Irving), feels sorry for her so she asks her boyfriend (William Katt) to take Carrie to prom instead of her. Christ Hargenson (Nancy Allen), on the other hand, is determined to have revenge and, with the help of her boyfriend (John Travolta), starts plotting against Carrie. But Carrie has telekinetic powers and messing with her won't be a smart move.

It's not like there's something smart about Carrie though, especially the plot. If there's something the novel and the film have in common is that both have a mediocre to say the least plot, but while the book was beyond boring at the beginning but it got better as I kept reading, the film started well, it was interesting and engaging, but as the plot advanced, it became so tedious.

Also, the film feels more like a teen romantic drama than a horror. I get that the source material wasn't that good, but how did Brian De Palma manage to turn a horror into a barely scary teen movie? And how did he manage to ruin the scene where Carries gets the bucket in the head? You know it's coming, but if there's something King did in the novel is deliver tension and suspense there. De Palma failed and the main reason is that the scene is dragged on for too long and loses its effectiveness. And I was expecting more blood.

United Artists

I wasn't a big fan of the music either. It was effective at times but when that Psycho-like music came on when Carrie was using her powers to do things just didn't do for me. The effects are excellent but only if you keep in mind this is 1976 and they are not that scary.

That being said, there's still something that makes Carrie worth watching, the acting. Though she is too beautiful and skinny to play Carrie, Sissy Spacek gives a hell of a performance, she captures the character so well that you feel empathy for Carrie, just like in the book. Another outstanding performance is delivered by Piper Laurie who plays Carrie's mother with a fantastic manic energy.