Product Details

• Actors: Martin Landau, Guido Grasso Jr., Bruce Ramsay, Tony Nardi, Costas Mandylor
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Live / Artisan
• VHS Release Date: August 15, 2000
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000365DV
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #171,774 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Totally Unacceptable!, January 20, 2000

By 

Tony (Teterboro, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bonanno: Godfather's Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw this movie on Showtime in FULL. It was great and a person could follow the story. This video version was put out by Artisan and the editing is HORRIBLE! From the 4 hours I saw on Showtime it was cut down to 2 hours on this video. It skipped back and forth in time that I forgot what I was watching. Some of the best scenes were cut out. How could they do this! I am very upset. This is not the same movie I saw on Showtime, they totally destroyed it!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I feel ripped off!, November 20, 2004

By 

Luther L. Williams - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bonanno: Godfather's Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw the movie when it originally aired on showtime. I recorded the movie then and was excited when it was released for sale. When I watched the store released movie I noticed that the running minutes is two hours and twenty minutes. THATS WRONG! The originally aired "Bonanno: A Godfather's Story" was almost or exactly five hours long. They cut out two and a half hours of important moments of Joseph Bononno's life. I feel cheated and disappointed that someone allowed this to happen to someones biography. I like mafia movies and I thought this was a good one.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Mobs' role in Kennedy's election is fact...the movie, January 21, 2004

By 

S. McCrea "s_mccrea" (Henderson, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bonanno: Godfather's Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

and Joe Kennedy's creation of the family fortune thru bootlegging and stock swindling is no longer even disputed. Even members of the Kennedy family no longer dispute that the family fortune is based on crime--specifically drug smuggling.

And, Joe Kennedy himself later admitted, as frist chairman of the SEC, he outlawed many of the (stock swindling) tactics he'd used to get rich at small investor's expense.

We also know that the only reason Jack Kennedy won the crucial W. VA primary in '60 was because of Sam Giancana's help in rigging the primary.

These facts are not any longer in dispute--nor are the stories about dead people voting in Chicago in their thousands.

This movie exaggerated Bonnano's role at the expense of the true "capo di capi", Sam Giancana. He is the character upon Michael Coreleone's of "The Godfather" series is based upon. He was the one who ordered Kennedy's hit.

He was also found with five .22 caliber bullets in his back--of the same type frequently used by CIA, ah, shall we call them button men?

The movie is long and dull and not very interesting; the Liberals farcical denials of historical fact are more interesting.

The real story of the Mafia and how they bought the Presidency (as his tangenitally detailed in the "Rat Pack" with Ray Liotta and Don Cheadle a few years back) is far more interesting than this run of the mill TV mini-series. Even the talents of Landau, Olmos, et al can't save this from the worst of all fates for art: mediocrity.