Wops On Film: An Italian Movie Character Study

Boppity boopy?

Cinematically Correct disclaimer: I am Italian. I’m totally allowed to mock the nationality.

There are many famous Italian movie characters, the majority of which are from “The Godfather”. If you were to make a list of the Best Italian Movie Characters, you could almost fill out the top ten with “Godfather” characters. Since I love lists, I decided to come up with, you guessed it, the Best Dagos On Film list. There are no arbitrary rules to this list…just my favorites in no important order.

• Daniel LaRusso, “The Karate Kid”. Make no mistake about it, Daniel is the greatest fictional Italian karate fighter ever. Just try and think of one better than him. I dare you.
• Billy Batts, “Goodfellas”. If you haven’t told somebody to go get their shinebox, well, you haven’t lived.
• Guido Orefice, “Life Is Beautiful”. Let’s see…Italian Jew that sacrifices his own life to save his son? He makes the list.
• Jake LaMotta, “Raging Bull”. I just had a brilliant idea…who wins in a fight, LaRusso or LaMotta? One caveat: It’s the Fat LaMotta.
• Lefty Ruggiero, “Donnie Brasco”. I could watch Lefty trying to break into the parking meter one thousand times and still laugh. Remember, Lefty’s known in all five boroughs. Fahgettaboutit.
• Vito Corleone, “The Godfather”. “Look what they did to my boy…” Is there a more emotionally powerful moment in the entire runtime of “The Godfather” trilogy?
• Johnny Cammareri, “Moonstruck”. No movie shows the overly dramatic Italian family than this one…and Johnny takes the emotional cake in it. He lost his hand, his heart, his brother, his mother, it’s more tragic than…
• Michael Corleone, “The Godfather, Part Two”. Sure, the first movie has some quality Michael…but he has his own brother killed in the second one. Even for the mafia…that’s cold.
• Tommy DeVito, “Goodfellas”. This is the only entry on the list to kill another entry on the list. Go watch “Goodfellas” again and tell me it isn’t a dark comedy. Seriously, it’s hilarious.
• Tony Manero, “Saturday Night Fever”. John Travolta created what is not only the greatest Italian on film ever, it’s probably the greatest thing to ever happen in America. There should be a Tony Manero statue somewhere.
• Loretta Castorini, “Moonstruck”. It’s one of my favorite movies ever and the only bad thing about Cher being so fantastic in it is that it led to more Cher acting.