Fear City: New York vs The Mafia

On Netflix now:



Some good archive footage of NYC during the 70s and 80s, but doubtful if there´s anything we don´t already know about The Five Families.

Good if you like human cockroaches like this lot of Italian-American scum were/are.

 

I watched it. It was alright, but I thought it would be better. It gave some new insight, but 97% of it was just regurgitated shit that most of us who follow mob stories already knew, especially us New Yorkers who actually grew up in the era.

Everybody knows that 'Fat' Tony Salerno was a psycho while Paul Castellano was more of a covert businessman who pretended like he wasn't a Don.

This is information that's been divulged ad nauseam for decades.

And everryyyyyyyybody knows about Gotti's hit on Castellano, and how Giuliani had a hard on for bringing down the mob.

Nothing new.

 

Probably also reflects on the fact that, historically, Carmine always said the Sopranos are nothing more than a glorified crew.

 

I really liked it- it was a fresh perspective; almost pure LE perspective. Otherwise the mob thing has been rehashed countless times in all sorts of movies, all of which follow the script of glorifying the greasy leaches. I actually didn’t know the degree of Giuliani's involvement, and seeing how they planted the bugs and structured special laws to enable prosecution of the bosses was very interesting.

It did drag though, no doubt, and I thought could’ve been richer in sharing the evidence- we know they spent days showing it to the jury yet through 3 episodes they had to recycle some of the same soundbites multiple times??

8/10 for me.

 

You must be new to mafia history.

There was VERY LITTLE fresh perspective provided.

As for Giuliani's involvement - I dunno, maybe chalk it up to me being a New Yorker, but I figured everyone knew that Giuliani made his bones by attacking the mob - maybe I was wrong to assume that was widely known.

For me, Fear City was same ole, same ole.

At this point, there is not NOT anyway to present a plethora of new information about the mob.

The mafia and Hitler are THE TWO MOST DOCUMENTED entities in history.

 

I´ve seen 2 documentaries with Michael Franzese interviewing about the structure of the Mob as well as this new one, but if you dont already know the names and chiefs of the Five Families already, then it´s going to be new....

 

I'm surprised they didn't go into ANY depth about how the Five Families actually came to be. They were the brainchild of Salvatore Maranzano, who appointed among other bosses, Lucky Luciano to run these 5 fams. They were also no mention of Carlo Gambino, whom Vito Corleone's GF character was based on.

Netflix could have at least BRIEFLY touched upon this stuff for background, but instead they hopped right into the 70s.

In the whole of mafia history, guys like Maranzano, Luciano, and Gambino were more important figures than the likes of Castellano, Gotti, and Salerno.

 

I think that might be it.. you being from there probably have a lot more exposure to the whole thing. My knowledge base is the Godfather movies, Goodfellas, Casino etc. All a bunch of hype jobs about how cool the mob was. The real world politic/law enforcement side is pretty blind to me growing up in a different place.

I’m sure all that info is out there and have no doubt its mostly rehashed- but they packaged it together nicely for someone that otherwise just knows the ‘entertainment’ side of the mob.

 

I watch an episode and half....same ol stuff from documentaries from 20/30 years ago. I wish they play more of the audio recording...particularly from Ruggiero's tape..."quack quack" could talk.

 

You could throw a rock and hit 500 documentaries on the NYC mafia. At some point, there's just nothing new to tell.

The only "old" topic I can recall which was truly given a new, fresh perspective was the OJ trial. ESPN's "OJ: Made in America" was a masterpiece - best original content ESPN ever produced.

It's rare that an old topic get retold with so much new information, and fresh perspective.

I doubt we'll ever see it with the mafia.

 

Haven't seen the show but if they didn't even mention Gambino it would be like doing a documentary on Colombian drug cartels and not mentioning Escobar.

 

Lol @ just thinking of Escobar and the plethora of carbon-copy shows about his rise to power, his low key chill persona, his glorious mustache and how he connected with the poor and destitute members of society. At one point I checked and I swear there were no less than about 7 different Pablo Escobar shows running on Netflix at the same time. And that’s barely scratching the surface of what’s out there. I don’t get it. After watching the second one I realized there was literally nothing left to learn. Dude moved alot of blow, we get it.

 

I also heard he had a guy killed once.

 

For real? I don’t remember that part, I guess I’ll watch them all again

 

Yep, and none of them come close to the Narcos series.

 

They didn't mention Gambino at all.

 

Nothing to say all powerful no flash...

 

The Tik Tok generation needs this information since the only New York gangster they know of is Donald Trump.

 

"OH NO PLEASE NO NOT THE GREASEBALLS"































.................................

 

I’d rather see more documentaries on the Philly mob, and other cities.

 

Jesus, that fucking lot. Little Nicky and Skinny Joey and friends. What a shower of imbecilic psychopathic coked-out, deranged scum fucks.

I mean they stagger around complainin' about dem fucking moolies and THEN they shoot Angelo Bruno in the back of the head so they can flood the streets with junk and muscle in on his operations in Atlantic City and then they wind up going to jail anyways.

Imbecilic fucking morons. Focus on not using 3 onions. Go sell Cannoli.