Martin Scorsese is nominated for an Oscar for “The Irishman,” but he ain’t no wiseguy, according to a real-life mobster.
Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano has seen the movie starring Robert De Niro as Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and his alleged role in the disappearance — thought to be murder — of union boss Jimmy Hoffa and let’s just say this convict critic’s got some beef.
The 74-year-old, who was notoriously the former Gambino family underboss and confessed to 19 murders, told Vulture he thought the movie “would be a lot better,” especially since it starred De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino.
“It was not as well done as I thought would be, with everybody who was in it,” he said. “They could’ve did a much better job. You know, they’re all big actors when it comes to Mafia movies, stuff like that.”
Gravano, like many critics, also thought the movie was “very long,” but also claimed the facts in the movie were “wrong.” In fact, the ex-mobster-turned-rat who was released from prison in 2017 said he knows the identity of the real person who whacked Hoffa.
“The Irishman did not do the shooting. He’s not the guy who killed Jimmy Hoffa,” he said. “From what I understood it was given to Tony Provenzano, who was a very powerful captain of the Genovese family, and his man, his guy Sally-something-or-other, whatever the f–k his name was — I can’t think of it.”
When the writer suggested he meant “Sally Bugs” Briguglio, who was played by Louis Cancelmi in the movie, Gravano continued to seemingly snitch — from his undisclosed location where he is serving life on parole.
“Yes, Sally Bugs. From what I understood, he was the guy who actually killed Hoffa,” he said. “So the story was wrong. It was all done wrong!”
Gravano also added the way the body was handled was completely bungled — “It’s ridiculous. I would never do that.” — and it’s unlikely anyone with connections would even tell the tale.
“This is not something that they normally talk about,” he said.
The film adheres to “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt, who was the lawyer of real-life Sheeran. In the book, Sheeran claimed he was the one who bumped off his longtime friend and Teamsters boss, popping him in the head with a bullet at an undisclosed home in suburban Detroit, Michigan. The movie sticks to the plot laid out in the book, which includes Sheeran luring Hoffa, portrayed by Pacino, into a car with Hoffa’s foster son Chuckie O’Brien (Jesse Plemons in the film) and Sally Bugs in a hit ordered by Pesci’s character, Russell Bufalino.
Bufalino, Gravano added, was also a major inaccuracy in the film and the mobster boss of northeastern Pennsylvania’s role is “exaggerated” in the Hollywood version.
“There’s times in the movie when they are talking about getting back to ‘the real boss,’ like it’s Bufalino,” he said. “Angelo Bruno was the boss of the Philadelphia mob, not Russell Bufalino. So they got this whole f–king thing twisted and turned around. I don’t know who told them what.”
But don’t worry. Gravano is a self-proclaimed “fan” another De Niro-Pesci film, Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar-winning film “Goodfellas.”
“That’s the way we lived,” he said. “It had a lot of truth, though I’m sure there was some Hollywood involved.”
Original Post https://nypost.com/2020/01/15/heres-what-mob-rat-sammy-the-bull-gravano-thinks-of-the-irishman/