Netflix Docu-Series Review: Fear City

[PTown]

I came across the Netflix Documentary entitled "Fear City" the other day. It's been out for a while, but Netflix is promoting it again. It's about the arrests and convictions of the heads of NY's Five Families during the Commission Trial in the mid-1980s.

I give it a 5 out of 10. The production quality is good. And casual watchers of mob documentaries will like it. I learned a lot about the Concrete Club, a stunningly profitable bid-rigging plan that allowed four of the five families to make big bucks on skyscraper construction, including from developers like Donald Trump.

But it has a bunch of weaknesses too. I found John Alite less than honest. The documentary portrays him as a Made Man, even though he was an associate of Albanian heritage.

Oddly, the documentary calls Paul Castellano "the Boss of Bosses" as shorthand for him being the most powerful. We know that to be a dated, salacious term that hasn't been used for decades.

The documentary plays a lot of the surveillance tapes, but also not enough. Similarly, it kind of explains why RICO was the start of the downfall of the mob, but with little follow through.

Where convenient, it calls men bosses who were underbosses or street bosses. I understand it might have been too much to go into for the casual viewer (even though the documentary is many episodes long) but it would have been more accurate to call these men "highest leadership of the X family" etc.

In sum: it was entertaining enough, and I learned a lot about lesser known mob figures like Tony Ducks Corallo, but at the same time, the inaccuracies were annoying.

[Ivan]

It was interesting to me because of all the FBI weirdos they had featured in it, like Joe O'Brien (a very strange man) and that nerdy guy who actually did the Castellano bugging.

Also was funny to hear the recording of Tony Ducks toasting Fat Tony with "here's to your health and fuck everything". I've adopted this as my own.

[PTown]

Oh that reminds me, thank you Ivan, that it is also my understanding that a lot of the real work in the Commission case was done by New York State organized crime task forces, and yet they credit it all to the FBI. I'm sure that pissed a lot of people off!

[Little_Al1991]

We still don’t have the entirety of the wiretaps

We want that

[JoeNGallo]

I enjoyed it for the surveillance photo's that I'd not seen before. Especially Piney Armone with Gotti.

There is another new 3-part Mob doc on the History Channel called American Godfathers: The Five Families, (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33054614/) narrated by Michael Imperioli.

Few FBI guys on there, authors/historians such as Selwyn Rabb #7 Salvatore Lupo. Then you got the usual ex-mob guys like Michael Franzese & Paul Cantarella.

I enjoyed it, but we all know the story. A few new surveillance photos, with this one of Gotti and apparently Joe Massino:

[JoeNGallo]

Attachment:

[JerryB]

I came across the Netflix Documentary entitled "Fear City" the other day. It's been out for a while, but Netflix is promoting it again. It's about the arrests and convictions of the heads of NY's Five Families during the Commission Trial in the mid-1980s.

I give it a 5 out of 10. The production quality is good. And casual watchers of mob documentaries will like it. I learned a lot about the Concrete Club, a stunningly profitable bid-rigging plan that allowed four of the five families to make big bucks on skyscraper construction, including from developers like Donald Trump.

But it has a bunch of weaknesses too. I found John Alite less than honest. The documentary portrays him as a Made Man, even though he was an associate of Albanian heritage.

Oddly, the documentary calls Paul Castellano "the Boss of Bosses" as shorthand for him being the most powerful. We know that to be a dated, salacious term that hasn't been used for decades.

The documentary plays a lot of the surveillance tapes, but also not enough. Similarly, it kind of explains why RICO was the start of the downfall of the mob, but with little follow through.

Where convenient, it calls men bosses who were underbosses or street bosses. I understand it might have been too much to go into for the casual viewer (even though the documentary is many episodes long) but it would have been more accurate to call these men "highest leadership of the X family" etc.

In sum: it was entertaining enough, and I learned a lot about lesser known mob figures like Tony Ducks Corallo, but at the same time, the inaccuracies were annoying.

Hey PTown: Thanks for the head's up (post) and an excellent review/rec-cap of the series.

[Docloads]

Great review. The fact that they never once mention that Fat Tony ultimately was NOT the true Boss of Genovese Family was interesting.