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Find Me Guilty (2006)
Rate:
6
Viewed:
4/25
4/25:
Uh...why the sympathetic tone, Mr. Lumet?
These guys are criminals. The Mafia, you know? They kill people. Find Me Guilty is also dishonest
filmmaking. What it didn't reveal at the end is that the jury had been tampered with and that Jackie
DiNorscio's gregarious personality didn't mean a thing. It's been a known fact since 1993, and the movie was
released in 2006. One of the jurors was a nephew of a capo, and he was paid $100,000 to vote for acquittal.
So, the viewers are left with the impression that the jurors must have been morons, but I'm sure many didn't
want to vote guilty in the fear of being killed down the road. Imagine facing the entire Mafia family
comprising twenty defendants. It's not an easy task. If I were the government, I would've tried
everybody one at a time instead of the whole shebang.
After the trial, all went back to doing the same thing as before. Most got either busted or became
government informants and went into the witness protection program thereafter. What a joke. Honor has never
meant anything to them. Worse, the names of almost all players were changed in the film despite the case being a
public record. One of them was Nick Calabrese who killed at least fourteen people, but that's a Chicago guy
who's related to the father and son covered in the book:
Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family.
Back to the film, everybody's performance is fine and all. I like Ron Silver, and he's great as always. I admit
it was hard for me to get used to the change of scenery for Vin Diesel because he's an action star of popcorn
junk films. Nonetheless, he has done a good job and is rather believable as a goombah. The real guy himself
personally picked him because he saw his performance in
The Fast and the Furious.
Lastly, I don't want to sound mean or offensive, but this needs to be said. Why the fuck a midget lawyer?
I searched on the internet if it did happen for real, and there's nothing at all. I've seen maybe two or
three dwarves in my entire life. In other words, they're extremely rare. If the story was fictional, that's
fine by me, but this one was based on an actual trial. It would be mind-blowing to me if there was a dwarf
in a position of authority. What a huge mistake by Sidney Lumet. By the way, the "C" in RICO stands for
"Corrupt," not "Conspiracy."
All in all, Find Me Guilty is more distasteful than interesting.