Plot
In 1973, Gambino crime family underboss Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce tasks John Gotti, a young associate, with killing gangster James McBratney, who is believed to have kidnapped and murdered boss Carlo Gambino's nephew Emanuel. After executing McBratney at a bar, Gotti is identified as his killer in 1974 and sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment at Green Haven Correctional Facility the following year. Released on parole in 1977 after 2 years, he reunites with his wife Victoria and their children and becomes a "made man", immediately climbing the Mafia hierarchy to become a capo.
By 1979, Gotti operates out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club with his childhood friend Angelo Ruggiero. His oldest son John "Junior" Gotti enters the New York Military Academy, but aspires to join the Mafia. Despite Dellacroce's counsel and the assurances of fellow capo Frank DeCicco, Gotti mistrusts the Lucchese crime family's top underboss, Anthony Casso. On March 18, 1980, his 12-year-old middle son Frank is accidentally struck and killed by a car driven by John Favara, his next-door neighbor. Favara later disappears on July 28, and the only witness to his abduction, diner owner Leon Papon, is intimidated into silence.
With the Gambino family having come under increased scrutiny in 1985, Gotti becomes convinced that family boss Paul Castellano is too frail to lead effectively. Junior, meanwhile, instigates a bar brawl that causes a patron's death, infuriating his father. Federal authorities release incriminating tapes, caught on an FBI wiretap of Gambino family meetings, that reveal Gotti's involvement in labor racketeering. He escapes conviction when the case goes to trial, but prosecutor Diane Giacalone, assistant attorney for the Eastern District of New York, discloses that his close associate, Wilfred "Willy Boy" Johnson, has been a confidential informant for the FBI since 1966. Gotti agrees to reprieve Johnson for betraying the family, but does not object when Johnson is eventually murdered on August 29, 1988.
Suffering from brain cancer, Dellacroce informs Gotti of Castellano's plans to reorganize the Gambino family and disband Gotti's crew due to his insubordination and helps him secure the approval of the Five Families to eliminate Castellano, who fails to attend Dellacroce's funeral two days after his death on December 2. Castellano and his bodyguard Thomas Bilotti are gunned down outside Sparks Steak House in midtown Manhattan on December 16. Gotti subsequently takes over the Gambino family, becoming "the real-life Godfather". Rival boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante of the Genovese crime family plots with Casso to eliminate him, and on April 13, 1986, DeCicco is killed by a car bomb that Ruggiero believes was meant for Gotti. Casso survives an unsanctioned hit, tracking down and torturing the hitman, James Hydell, into revealing he was sent by Ruggiero. Gotti reconciles with Gigante before excommunicating Ruggiero from the family to shield him from further retribution.
After escaping prosecution for the third time in 1987, Gotti is nicknamed "the Teflon Don". Junior is inducted into the Gambino family on Christmas Eve 1988 and marries his wife Kim in April 1990, while Ruggiero dies from terminal lung cancer in December 1989. On trial in 1992 for the fourth time, Gotti is charged with organizing Castellano's murder. Underboss Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano testifies against him, and this time, Gotti is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Junior assumes control as rivals target the organization and several family members are killed, and is himself taken into custody on January 21, 1998. On February 5, 1999, he visits his now-ailing father at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, to inform him that he is considering a plea bargain.
Following Gotti's death on June 10, 2002 from throat cancer, Junior chooses to abandon his criminal life for his own family's sake. After five trials, he is finally released from prison in December 2009.
