‘The Godfather’ Shows a Hit Scene a Former Mob Boss Called ‘Too Much Work’
The best mob movies are full of gruesome action and memorable hits. Despite the gratuitous violence, these films often create a sympathetic portrayal of the characters. Movies like The Godfather and Goodfellas are sweeping epics that invite viewers into the family, where the “business” takes a backseat to the characters’ personal lives.
After watching these films, many wonder if they’re an accurate portrayal of life as part of a criminal organization. Sure, we know they have to make it flashy to entertain audiences, but are they really that far off the mark?
A former mobster recently sat down and critiqued some of the most famous scenes from these films, and what he has to say is surprising.
‘The Godfather’ tollbooth hit scene is unforgettable
Everyone who has ever seen The Godfather will remember Sonny’s hit scene. In this scene, we see Sonny Corleone (the eldest son of the Corleone family) receive a phone call from his sister, Connie. Sonny flies into a rage after learning that his sister has been beaten (again) by her husband, Carlo. He takes off in his car, with several of his men jumping into another car to follow him.
Sonny pulls up to a tollbooth, where he begins to get the sense that something is amiss. The area is empty of any other cars, except one in front of him, which has stopped. The toll operator drops Sonny’s change, but when he bends down to get it, he closes his window. As Sonny turns to look at the booth on the other side of his car, shots begin to blast through it.
He’s shot numerous times by the men in the tollbooth and the car in front of him. He staggers out of the car only to have his body riddled with more bullets. After falling to the ground, another hitman approaches and shoots his dead body again, then kicks him in the head. The hitmen take off, and the scene becomes eerily quiet as the camera pans around at the destruction. Sonny’s men pull up, too late to provide any help.
A former mob boss calls the scene ‘unrealistic’ and ‘too much work’
In a video from Insider, an actual former mob boss critiqued Sonny’s death scene. Michael Franzese, a former caporegime for the Colombo crime family in New York, is one of the only people to ever publicly leave the Mafia and live. According to IMDb, he was ranked #18 on Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Wealthy and Powerful Crime Bosses in 1986. He is currently the only man from that list who isn’t dead or incarcerated.
While watching the scene from The Godfather, Franzese commented, “This would never happen.” He went on to say that it required far too much work, because it required so many men to come together on one hit. Not only that, but the whole setup was unrealistic too. According to Franzese, mob hits “are usually done at close range, with small caliber guns and shotguns being used.”
He says he’d never seen anything like the Sonny hit in real life. He referred to the guns they used in the scene, recalling that mobsters in the 1920s used something similar, then referred to as “Tommy guns.” However, The Godfather was set in the late 1940s, so those guns most likely wouldn’t have still been around. Franzese rated the realism of the scene as a 4/10.
What has Franzese said about other mob movies?
The scene from The Godfather was just one of 13 Mafia scenes that Franzese was asked to critique. The 1999 comedy Analyze This also received a 4/10 rating from Franzese for its scene when all of the mob families meet up. He said that since the Apalachin meeting in the 1950s that was raided by the police, the families no longer meet up for summits like that.
Another iconic scene that Franzese reviewed came from The Godfather: Part II. Fans of the film will never forget the “kiss of death” scene with Fredo and Michael. Franzese says he believes the actual “kiss of death” was a “Sicilian thing” and that in Italy, there were no holds barred.
They’d go after your family, law enforcement, and anyone who crossed them. The scene resonated with Franzese because of his experience with his own brother, who turned informant and went into witness protection. He gave the scene a whopping 9/10.
Franzese called a scene from the Johnny Depp/Al Pacino film Donnie Brasco “one of the most realistic scenes in all of mob moviedom.” The scene shows Depp’s character (Donnie Brasco) lounging on the couch, talking with his buddies about Raquel Welch and cars. He mentions that the term “fuggedaboutit” is one he still uses quite often, and the “sit-down” is always the way a Mafia meeting is done. This was the only scene to receive a 10/10 from Franzese.
