The Sopranos - A Preliminary Analysis

I've never watched The Sopranos before until this month. I'm currently on the 3rd season, and I've watched bits on YouTube, so in some ways I've slightly spoiled myself on later details. But that's okay because I've managed to keep everything I've seen in perspective.

Tony Soprano is no Vito Corleone. Doesn't share the same life, the same timeline, the same manerisms, but his position and duties can be similar. He looks more like an average joe, which is so much easier to pull off in the 1990s. At times he can be quite an asshole, but he can be remarkably giving and demonstrates great restraint. He delegates and understands what is too far.

Though some chronic TV bingers may find the subject matter abrasive and extremely violent, the show didn't come without cleverness. This isn't a early 20th century Don wearing a "Don Fannuci" hat and suit that sticks out. This is a 40ish Italian descent man with a wife, two teenage kids, severe mother issues, anxiety and depression, struggles with therapy..........who happens to be a boss or the boss of a New Jersey crime family.

I could be wrong, but my impression is that there are more people hurt or "whacked" during the show's timeline than in all the Godfather movies combined. More restraint and trust in Vito's world? Maybe. It could be the fact that in the world of The Sopranos, there are a lot more investigative tools in the 1990s, including flipping members to get high ranking members on record about their crimes. But the organization has their own ways of figuring out who's being an informant. Plus there are lots people who don't agree with how Tony runs things, and people who run their mouths. Then there is Tony's mom, who a) conspired with Tony's uncle (fellow capo and Boss) to have Tony whacked, and b) fed Uncle Junior information that nearly had Tony whacked when that information was fueled by early onset dementia. Tony's mom is a completely negative person who transfers her bleak outlook on life onto her children and other associate people, then practically revels in their failures.

Though Uncle Junior nearly had Tony whacked, twice, he got his head on straight and realized that the information motivating removing Tony was absolutely false, and corrected his path. I like Uncle Junior, but Tony at times gives him little respect. But he knows he can get away with it because Uncle Jun knows Tony has the intelligence and balls to rule the family.

Those are my thoughts so far. More will be written as time goes by.

Casino - a mob house of cards

 ".....you said I'm bringing heat on YOU?
I gotta listen to people because of your fuckin shit? You're orderin me out? You better get your own fuckin army pal"



I like Goodfellas, but in many ways Casino is more approachable. Joe Pesci's character Nicky Santoro is ruthless, homicidal, and violence-happy. But he had a duality. He cared for his friends, family and possessed loyalty. You could see a dynamic personality that makes him engaging, and at many times quite humorous.

I read another review and it's way better written than I will write here. But I just want to address some points. This is more about thoughts than it is a review. Casino took the viewer on a voyage through the Casino business as if a reformed Wiseguy described the inner workings in a Discovery Channel documentary he is hosting. I doubt they'd do any better. The movie showed you that it was essentially running but needed a good manager to bring in more money to allow the "skim" to bring in more money, and showed how card by card, it got brought down. Greed, sex, violence, dysfunction, corruption, and addictions all played their part.

While the mob bosses far removed from the glittering lights work behind the scenes in corruption that makes them a lot of money, the county commissioners work on their own corruption when they don't get what they want.

We could go on all day describing in detail how Ginger brought the entire enterprise down. But the fact that it's a given that the casino operation was destroyed by a dysfunctional, addicted, emotionally scarred, hustling woman is not a stretch of the imagination. But it wasn't just her.

What makes the movie humorous is how the FBI got what they wanted when a mob Lieutenant complains too much and doesn't seem to know when to shut up. The crap he complains about aren't even his problem. They start from him not being reimbursed for his travel from Kansas City to Vegas. How hard is it to politely ask your boss, even if he is a mob boss, to get reimbursed for the travel expenses? It also illustrates that these wiseguys may be putting their faith in the wrong people simply because they toe the line in their organization. Piscano already demonstrated he needed a map, diagram and step by step instructions on doing the task of going to the casino and grabbing the skim money. How hard is that to do when you're in is being a bigger fish in the mob ocean? 

So the mob screws up with trusting a guy "who could fuck up a cup of coffee." But where they don't screw up is having people whacked when it comes down to the bosses possibly going to the slammer. They are a bit too good at this.

But fortunately Ace comes out okay. Almost got whacked but his car saved his life and that was the only time anyone was going to try. In a way, it's like the movie showed two paths: Ace, though a control freak, cares about people. His daughter and even Ginger and Nicky. That good nature allowed him to see the sun rise and fall after the house of cards came down. Nicky's ruthless and gutsy ambition led him to an early grave.

They must have a playbook

                              ".......because it had nothing to do with business!!"                                                               

As I have watched The Godfather, it appears that to a great extent, the heads of the five families already know how one family will react in a big situation and  the other family plays into that.

A great example from The Godfather, Sollozzo goes to Don Vito Corleone to ask for protections the Coreleone's possess to aid him and the Tattaglias in the trafficking of narcotics and the Coreleones will receive a cut of that. But Vito politely declines because it may harm the relationships with their political resources. Vito gets suspicious, sends his trusted enforcer Luca Brasi to fish out information from them under the cover that he's not happy with the Coreleones and wants to do business with Sollozzo and the Tattaglias. Sounds like a good plan, but the Tattaglias knew something like that was going to come their way, so they opened up to Luca so that a piano wire garote could lock him in for the kill.

This isn't the only example. 

The tricky one is Barzini. But Vito figured out in the big meeting that Barzini was behind everything, and the person who came to Vito and Michael about a big meeting which is an ambush for Michael to be killed would be the traitor. Vito warned Michael that this would happen.

I've watched Godfather Part II so many times because I love Robert De Niro playing young Vito. But both the 1950s Michael timeline and the young Vito timeline leave a lot to be desired. Even in a long movie with somewhat gradual plot developments and changes, they go from A to D, barely grazing B and C rather quickly. Made it hard to establish what triggered the decision to go after Hyman Roth, or why, or Vito moves in for the kill on Fanuci. It's not too hard to understand, but the necessary plot tying filler would be nice. But what's why I'm trying to get my hands on The Godfather Epic. I started to watch it on HBO, but it got yanked from me before I could finish. But it puts those deleted scenes back in. I understand that in the theatrical version, it would have made the movie far longer than it's originally super long package was.

So anyway, as Michael finds that Hyman Roth was the mastermind behind the hit on him (which failed), it's not hard to understand why. Hyman Roth worked with Vito Corleone from almost the beginning. Hyman Roth worked with and was close friends with Moe Green in the early days of the establishment of Las Vegas. Later, the Corleones moved into the casino business and eventually killed Moe Greene to gain full control. It doesn't take much for a close invested party who has that insider information to make the connection that the Corleones bought into the Casino of Moe Green, and when he ended up dead, it would have been at the hands of the Corleones. I'd be bitter too if I was Hyman, even if I made a speech of ".......because it has nothing to do with business!" A vendetta is going to be in order.

The theatrical version of The Godfather Part II doesn't give a lot of indication why Vito sets his aim on Don Fanucci, but when you see Vito in his power over the neighborhood, it's easy enough to see why. The epic version puts those deleted scenes back in where Vito finds conclusively that Fanucci doesn't have protections except the intimidation he puts ahead.

It seems that especially in the Michael timeline, all the families can anticipate each others actions, and it just turns into a bloody war. But the Corleone crime family cleverly break this cycle with 2 big actions: get around Sollozzo's protective measures by retrieving a secretly stashed weapon, and finding out the predictive routines of the heads of the other families and ambushing them right there.