Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Vertical Entertainment
Five years ago to the day, the John Travolta-starring mobster movie Gotti dropped into theaters, bombing so hard that I hear Christopher Nolan studied it to make the explosion in Oppenheimer even more lifelike. Unlike its titular Don, Gotti was essentially a laughing stock. It made a paltry $6.1 million at the box office, against a $10 million budget, and hobbled out of its brief theatrical run with cinder blocks strapped to its feet.
No doubt about it, Gotti was a certified dud. The film is overcomplicated, underwritten, stereotypical dreck, the kind of movie that Martin Scorsese probably uses as an icebreaker at dinner parties, when he hands his guests a DVD copy to use as a coaster. My dear colleague Nick Schager wrote at the time of release that the film “[overflowed] with so many awful Italian accents, it [came] across as borderline bigoted.” The review succinctly summarized the overall travesty in its headline: “Gotti Is the Most Hilariously Bad Movie of the Year.”
Even though the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival—where critics sometimes over-exaggerate the quality (or lack thereof) of a film while under the spell of the salty sea air—reviewers were no kinder a month later when it had its theatrical release. Gotti ended up with a 0 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So, in a last-ditch attempt to save the movie from bargain bin hell, its press team created an advertisement attacking the film’s critics that was so wildly brilliant (and so incredibly bitter) that its desperate pleas still live in my head to this day.