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'BOSS OF BOSSES' CASTS MOB KINGPIN CASTELLANO AS HERO.


Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

Paul Castellano's downfall was his effort to make the Gambino crime family The Gambino Crime Family is one of the "Five Families" that controls organized crime activities based in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia (or Cosa Nostra).  a clean operation, steering it clear of the drug running and other illegal rackets rackets

Game for two or four players with ball and racket on a four-walled court. Rackets is played with a hard ball in a relatively large court (approximately 9 × 18 m), unlike the related games of squash and racquetball.
 run by the other New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
 Mafia organizations.

The downfall of the TNT TNT: see trinitrotoluene.
TNT
 in full trinitrotoluene

Pale yellow, solid organic compound made by adding nitrate (−NO2) groups to toluene.
 movie ``Boss of Bosses'' is its effort to make him into some sort of tragic hero in a script based on the book written by three FBI agents who pursued him.

The movie presents him as a basically nice kid who wants to do right by his cousin Carlo Gambino, a man who later is haunted by memories of those he personally pulverized pul·ver·ize  
v. pul·ver·ized, pul·ver·iz·ing, pul·ver·iz·es

v.tr.
1. To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

2. To demolish.

v.intr.
 or murdered in his reckless youth, a guy who in his 60s begins sleeping with his 20-something Salvadoran housekeeper - not because of his lust and her greed but because of their mutual deep insight into each other's tortured souls. There's humanizing a guy, and then there's beatifying him.

How much more interesting - and believable - it might have been had screenwriter Jere Cunningham used the kind of stuff agent-authors Joseph F. O'Brien, Andris Kurins and Laurence Shames actually knew well firsthand, such as Castellano's own crimes, the ones he ordered and how close the feds were - or weren't - to nailing him in the justice system when Gambino lieutenant John Gotti had Castellano hit outside a Manhattan restaurant in 1985.

Chazz Palminteri adds the title role to his catalog of mob characters. Unfortunately, his genius playwright/mafioso in Woody Allen's ``Bullets Over Broadway'' was more credible. In Castellano there's no meaningful evolution from street tough to concrete and meat-wholesaling magnate.

The rest of the cast - Angela Alvarado Rosa as the housekeeper Gloria, Clancy Brown as Kurins, Mark Margolis as Piney pine·y  
adj.
Variant of piny.
 Armone and Dayton Callie as Neil Dellacroce - turn in acceptable performances, but none is outstanding. It's hard to rate Sonny Marinelli's work as Gotti because he has pitifully few lines given Gotti's significance in the outcome.

``BOSS OF BOSSES''

What: Movie about slain Gambino godfather Paul Castellano.

The stars: Chazz Palminteri, Angela Alvararado Rosa, Richard Foronjy, Jay O. Sanders Jay Olcutt Sanders (born 16 April 1953) is an American character actor.

Sanders was born in Austin, Texas to Phyllis Rae (née Aden) and James Olcutt Sanders.[1] Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
2006 Half Nelson Russ Dunne
2004
, Dayton Callie.

Where: TNT.

When: 8 p.m. Sunday.

Our rating: Two stars
COPYRIGHT 2001 Daily News
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:L.A. Life
Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Article Type:Television Program Review
Date:Jun 2, 2001
Words:357
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