Gee, that Sammy "the Bull" Gravano was a great guy, wasn't he? The underboss to Mafia chieftan John Gotti, he turned state's evidence and sent the former "Teflon Don" to prison for the rest of his life.
Furthermore, his information and testimony led to convictions of more than 30 other mobsters. What a hero!
Or so NBC's two-part TV movie "Witness to the Mob" would almost have us believe. There's just one problem with this neat little story, however. Gravano was also a cold-blooded, remorseless killer who "whacked" 18 or 19 people - he sort of lost track after awhile.
He killed (or supervised the killing of) his friends as well as his enemies. His longtime best friend, as a matter of fact. Not to mention his brother-in-law.
Gravano did, at least, throw his brother-in-law a big funeral. Well, his brother-in-law's arm, which was all they could find after Gravano's fellow mobsters cut the young man up into little pieces.
"Witness to the Mob" is a rather deceptive title for this miniseries, which airs tonight and Monday at 8 p.m. on Ch. 5. It's only the last 15 minutes or so that Gravano squeals - the other three hours and 45 minutes he's living the high life as a hugely successful criminal.
The makers of this movie deny that they're glorifying a killer. But that's disingenuous. By its structure alone - making Gravano the central character - Stanley Weiser's script makes Sammy sympathetic.
And there are repeated references to what a strong, upstanding mobster Gravano was. He promised to live by a code, and he did so to the best of his ability.
Never mind that that code entailed all manner of illegal and immoral activities.
And it's almost frightening to hear Nicholas Turturro ("NYPD Blue"), who stars as Gravano in "Witness," talk about the man he portrays.
"Personally, I like the guy," Turturro recently told TV critics. "I mean, everybody has a point of view, and everybody is entitled to how they see things. And you see things from the way he did business and the way he conducted his life - he was a straight-up guy. Never screwed anybody over. But if you screwed him, that was it."
Yeah, what a peach. He never screwed anybody over, he just extorted money from them and stole from them and assaulted them and threatened them and bullied them and murdered them.
But, we're told by both Turturro and the telefilm's executive producers, we have to look at Gravano in the context of his world - the Mafia.
"They all killed people," Turturro said. "That's what they did. That was their life. That was their lifestyle. And the thing about (Gravano) is, he doesn't make any apologies."
Oh no, no apologies. Just plain-spoken confessions, like the one Gravano gave on a network news magazine - an interview that was timed to help promote a book about his life in which the mobster had a financial interest.
"When I saw that interview, that was what I was really taken by - his honesty," Turturro said. "He came on TV. He didn't put a bag over his head. He's not embarrassed to say what he did. . . . At least he has the courage to say, `This is what I did and I'm not apologizing.' "
Yes, that's the definition of courage, isn't it? To admit you're a brutal killer and that you have no remorse for what you've done.
As insane as that sounds, that's basically the Sammy Gravano that comes across in "Witness to the Mob." There's no sense that Sammy is a bad guy, only that he's a misunderstood guy trying to provide for his family.
And, of course, that compared to Gotti, Gravano wasn't so bad. But even there, those responsible for "Witness to the Mob" maintain they scrupulously followed a middle line between the two killers.
"It's really trying to be a balanced story," insisted Jane Rosenthal, one of the executive producers along with her partner, Robert DeNiro. "It's as balanced as you can possibly be."
Too bad it doesn't provide the same sort of balance to Gravano's victims.
"Witness to the Mob" has more problems than just its reprehensible ethics. For all that it's full of plots and machinations and murders, the narrative plods forward predictably. It's derivative, and the direction, by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, is uninspired.
But even a great script and great direction would have had a difficult time overcoming Turturro's performance. He's wildly overmatched by the task of carrying four hours of television - better he should stick to supporting roles in an ensemble cast, as in "NYPD Blue."
(Not to mention the silly wig he wears throughout the TV movie.)
Debi Mazar doesn't fare much better in the thankless role of Gravano's subservient wife. Abe Vigoda more or less sleepwalks through his role as mob boss Paul Castellano. Tom Sizemore - the best actor of the bunch - does a much better job as Gotti.
The enormous supporting cast shuffles in and out, sometimes so quickly it becomes a bit confusing.
Those involved in "Witness to the Mob" seem perversely proud of the fact that theirs is a true story.
"Unlike some of the things we've been seeing, whether it's `The Last Don' or `The Last, Last Don' or `Bella Mafia,' it's not something pulled from fiction," said John Miller, a consultant on "Witness" and a former New York television reporter who covered Gotti. "It's not something gleaned from the storyline and the B plot and the C plot. It's something pulled out of real life, which in many ways makes it easier to tell and that much more interesting."
Right. Instead of glorifying fictional gangsters, "Witness to the Mob" glorifies a real mobster who killed real people.