Marketers behind John Travolta's "Gotti" movie are calling critics "trolls behind a keyboard" and asking viewers who they'll believe, themselves or the critics, after the movie opened to negative reviews.
“Audiences loved Gotti but critics don’t want you to see it … The question is why??? Trust the people and see it for yourself,” said a Tuesday tweet from the film's Twitter account, accompanied by a video that reads, "Critics put out the hit. Who would you trust more? Yourself or a troll behind a keyboard?"
The film has been called everything from “a mess” by The New York Times to “the worst mob movie ever” by the New York Post.
Travolta himself wasn’t so much the critics' target as the film as a whole. Peter Debruge of Variety wrote, “His performance ain’t lousy, but the movie that surrounds it is,” calling Travolta’s attempt to save it “almost laughable.”
Enterainment Weekly called the film “belated and disappointing,” but praised Travolta’s performance.
“Gotti” received a zero-percent score from critics on the Rotten Tomatoes site after its June 15 premiere but did better with audience ratings at 75 percent. However, the higher rating by the audience has been received with suspicion because the number of users was far higher than other recent movies, such as “Ocean’s 8,” which did much better than “Gotti” at the box office.
Rotten Tomatoes responded by stating there was no fix on the audience reviews. “We closely monitor our platforms and haven’t determined there to be any problems,” it stated, EW reported. “All of the reviews were left by active accounts.”
Dennis Rice, who headed the marketing efforts for the box-office bomb, told Deadline the movie did well in New York, Los Angeles, and cities where Travolta and Kelly Preston toured.
“Clearly critics are out of touch with the people who actually vote with their pocketbooks,” Rice said.
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