But if anything, his costumes are a bit too restrained, more appropriate to the ’90s production than the ’80s setting. So who played Gotti best? And are any of the movies actually worth watching? In order to answer these questions as scientifically as possible, we’ve drawn up this Gotti scorecard, broken down by the categories we think matter most: ‘Gotti’ (1996)ĭapperness: In the very first scene, Gotti is kidded for owing as much to his tailor as to his bookie. “Gotti” wasn’t the first mainstream attempt to capture Gotti’s life onscreen: An HBO film with the same name, from 1996, starred Armand Assante as the Dapper Don (Gotti had a lot of nicknames) Tom Sizemore played Gotti in “Witness to the Mob,” a 1998 made-for-TV movie centered on the footsoldier-turned-informer Salvatore Gravano. (For starters, it takes a truly special film to earn a goose egg from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.) But amid questions over conspiracy-theory marketing claims and marketing that might involve an actual conspiracy, the most pressing question has gone unanswered: How does John Travolta’s turn as the Teflon Don stack up against those of his two major predecessors?

The big-screen biopic “Gotti,” about the rise and fall of the former head of the Gambino crime family John Gotti, has summoned a fair amount of controversy since its release last week.

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