MovieChat Forums > Goodfellas (1990) Discussion > Restaurant co-ownership was ridiculous

Restaurant co-ownership was ridiculous

posted 3 years ago by Heisenberg (6730)
24 replies | jump to latest

Pileggi and Scorsese must have been high thinking that idea was realistic.

The owner begs Paulie to help him with Tommy. Henry suggests to make him co owner to protect him. He accepts. They run the restaurant into the ground in a matter of months.
Which Italian American businessman in the 70s would not know that having a mobster as your partner is not a good idea?
Why on earth would he agree with a bullshit solution like that one?

Tommy had a few unpaid bills and terrorized him and his waiters now and then.
Big deal!
Rather than take it like a man and deal with that little turd, he preferred to sign his whole business away to the devil. I found that oversimplified, poorly written and unrealistic.

[–] Windsaar (324) 3 years ago

Jimmy didn't owe the owner anything, nor did he terrorize anyone.

Tommy did though, and that's who the owner was looking for protection from.
Tommy was a psychopath and even his own people knew it.

The owner sided with the bad, to try to mitigate the terrible.

I think Scorsese just read it in the book and based it off of the true story.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

Ooops I meant Tommy, gonna correct my OP.
Everything else stands.

[–] Windsaar (324) 3 years ago

Like i said, it's just based of real life, whether it sounds fictitious or outlandish or not, it's just something that happened.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

This is a fictional mafia tale.
It is based on real events, nonetheless when something this unreasonably stupid is depicted, it needs to be pointed out how weird it is, or it looks like bad writing.
"Because it really happened" is not enough.
Fiction, especially when recreating real events, needs to be believable to be effective.
See Pain and Gain, they often point out how those events actually happened because they are so outlandish that a viewer will see them as stupid otherwise.

[–] Windsaar (324) 3 years ago

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[–] Windsaar (324) 3 years ago

They just didn't really explain it properly in the movie.

If I remember right, they called it "busting" (I could be wrong lol).
What i DO remember though, is that Tommy was giving the owner (and the bar/restaurant by extension) a hard time FOR Paulie.

They (the crew) look for a bar/restaurant to hang out where the owner doesn't so-much mind rubbing elbows with wiseguys.

Then one or a few of them would rack up huge tabs and start to "terrorize" the owner.
The idea is that eventually they'd realize that they couldn't go to the cops (since they'd surely end up dead just for mentioning them to the police) so they'd go to Paulie and ask for protection.

Then Paulie would get his hooks into the business to do whatever shady deals and hustles they do until it's time to "light the match", so to speak.
It was one of the rackets/hustles him and his crew ran.

If memory serves me correct, the scene right before the one where owner is asking Paulie for help was the one where Tommy is beating on the owner...so they lead into it a bit, but didn't flesh it out or explain it enough.

The movie kind of implies what was happening, but I agree that didn't really break it down, so it seemed kind of ridiculous the way is was written for and went down in the movie.

It's kind of like the filmmakers expected everyone to be read-up on and familiar with the same material they studied to make the film or something.

So, it WAS something that really happened. It just wasn't properly laid out in the movie.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

So this was a complete strategy to get ownership of the restaurant?
Ok, it makes more sense, like you said it was not clearly laid out in the movie.

But still, wouldn't most restaurant owners, particularly those that like to hang out with mobster, know about this ploy they use to steal restaurants? Why did he fall so easily for this?

[–] mobocracy (894) 3 years ago

The thing is, these wiseguys are everywhere in the neighborhood and not every business was gonna get "busted". The upside is it gives your joint a little sense of being important and maybe you might get some favors or maybe *not* get "busted" even.

I think the real problem is these wiseguys are just entirely unpredictable. One day, they like your joint and you think you've got some standing with them, the next day they turn on you, grind you up and spit you out.

And how do you keep them out in the first place? Tommy and Henry and Jimmy show up and start ordering shit, what are you gonna do? Tell them to get the fuck out, they're not welcome? All you can do is go along with them and hope they don't turn on you.

About this guy's only hope was to close down for a month or two and hope they lose interest in him, but good luck paying the bills.

[–] daveyh (632) 3 years ago

Thank you - that makes more sense now.
It was confusing because all we viewers are shown is Tommy being Tommy and flying off the handle at the first sign of perceived disrespect from the owner, so it just looks like a great piece of spontaneous opportunism from Paulie.
At the same time though, Henry's narration implies that they do this sort of thing all the time, the way he says words to the effect of "until in the end there's nothing to do but light a match" in the present tense.
It's a pity they didn't do more to show that it was all deliberate and planned.

[–] JosephQCat (706) 3 years ago

Not saying that you are wrong but that explanation was never made in the movie. That it was a plot by the wiseguys from the start versus a bar tab that got far out of hand.

[–] Windsaar (324) 2 years ago

I know that it wasn't explained in the movie. I had made mention about it in my original comment.

[–] millsey72 (10363) 3 years ago

Yea that was a plot hole

[–] BourbonKing (5778) 3 years ago

It was obvious to me that Paulie was pretending not to be interested in buying a piece of the restaurant, but was confusing to me wasn't the owner's proposal but the fact that he was already fencing stolen goods before the fallout with Tommy. They were moving everything from from fur coats to lobsters (Jimmy's favorite) and it was implied that this was true because they showed that heist scene immediately followed by the crew eating lobster at the nightclub. This dude was in bed with the mob from the get go so any financial trouble he has is already bound to Paulie and his associates.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

Well said. That is one more reason why he, the restaurant owner, should have known better than getting Paulie as a co owner.

[–] JosephQCat (706) a year ago

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[–] kungfulord (957) 3 years ago

You are seing the situation from outside so of course is unrealistic for us, but that doesnt mean this kind of things dint happen and still happen every day

Henry was working the guy convincing him, make him believe he's his friend and can trust him believing that he sign with the big boss thinking they are going to treat him diferently

Every day a lot of people get rob from well known criminals that way, they are hustlers they known what they are doing

You can see how Henry and Paul look at each other when they are talking with the guy they already have made their plan, and the guy not only give them his bussiness but beleive they are making him a favor

Actually that scene is pretty realistic

He cant do nothing against Tommy if he kill or paid to have him kill he would be dead, is easy to say he should have kill Tommy or fight him, but how a regular guy confront a criminal?

[–] JosephQCat (706) 3 years ago

He was already in as far as warehousing stolen items along with fencing these same items. He thought because he already was helping Paulie in that regard that he could get Paulie to help him with Tommy. He learned the hard way that his real value to the mobsters was zero. The smart thing would have been to never started with those guys to begin with. Run a family restaurant or something that guys like Tommy would never frequent. How do you "deal" with Tommy when the guy had no intention of paying his tab?

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

How to deal with Tommy?
Call a lawyer and the police.

But as you said, the restaurant was involved with some shady deals. So the law cannot be involved. Well, just stop serving Tommy till he pays his debt. He cannot force them to give him food, worse case he just gets pissed off and never pays his debt.

[–] JosephQCat (706) 3 years ago

Actually, Tommy would be the type of guy to force things out of a business. No different than a protection racket which NO LEGIT BUSINESS goes looking for. The lesson here is get tangled up with mobsters and you automatically lose. I live within an hour of a mid sized city that used to have a mob presence. I have never heard of anybody coming out a winner by voluntarily doing business with the mob.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

No of course not.
But I meant how to deal with him as just a regular patron of your restaurant.
When he doesn't pay a few bills, call the police and a lawyer.

[–] Waterboy (0) 2 years ago

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[–] Heisenberg (6730) 2 years ago

I wish the movie explained it this clearly.
The v.o. is talking so much it could have wasted one minute for this setup.

And again, shouldn't the owner have known better, since it is a racked scheme with its own name?

[–] Waterboy (0) 2 years ago

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[–] CalvinJarrett (462) a year ago

I think the owner had a pretty good idea what he was getting into, but the Tommy situation had become untenable. Tommy was racking up thousands of dollars in unpaid bills and smashing bottles over his head. He may have thought he was 'going out of the frying pan and into the fire,' but when you're in that frying pan, man, you want out so badly you hope you're wrong and that the alternative is not as awful as you fear. Turned out he delayed the inevitable and lost his livelihood. But had he not made the deal with Paulie, Tommy, left unchecked, may have caused him to lose his life.