So I'm gonna f---ing bury you right here.
But you'll be dead before Stevie pulls your teeth.
Accurate. He says, "All right, take his teeth out."
Back in those days, they didn't have DNA.
They would identify bodies by dental records.
My name is Mark Silverman,
and I was involved in organized crime
with the Italians and the Irish.
Today we're going to be looking at
some Irish mob movie scenes,
and we're going to judge how real they are.
What, did you get your period?
[yells]
F---!
One thing about bars, too,
is you always know who's coming in and out.
So you have a good idea of the strangers in there
or if there's something that doesn't look right.
You can really find out if somebody's there
to infiltrate the bar or cause trouble.
[screams]
Are you still a cop?
No!
That's a great scene.
I could tell you one thing.
And it struck me right away
when I saw the movie for the first time.
The state police are not going to try
to put one of their own inside of a crew,
especially a dangerous crew.
That's why they recruit informants
or top-echelon informants,
because the informants can walk the walk and talk the talk.
And I have never really seen
an undercover police officer inside of a crew.
A lot of people used to say, "Well,
I know that guy's a cop because of his shoes."
I would say, "You don't think that they know
what shoes to wear and what not to wear?"
Yeah, always, always looking over your shoulder for that.
I saw a cop when I came in here,
when I was pulling into the parking lot.
I didn't miss that.
But these days I don't have to worry about it.
Guys on the street like me that are looking at it
and saying, "Wow, that's pretty good."
School's out.
Thank you, Frank.
Police corruption back in the '80s and the '90s
was rampant.
Whitey Bulger certainly wasn't the only guy
that had the inside track with some of the departments,
whether they be local or state or federal.
Other guys, I mean,
you're not going to survive on the street
if you don't have friends within law enforcement.
And back then,
police didn't really make as much money as they do today,
and they were much more easily corrupted.
As we moved on to the 2000s,
I think that they got a little more stringent.
You know, they wanted to eradicate organized crime.
They wanted to just put that final nail in the coffin,
which they claim to have done several times.
We're not even supposed to be doing this s---
this close to Worcester.
This side of Worcester.
Says who?
Says him. Says Costello.
This is very accurate.
So, they're obviously nervous.
It's all about territory.
If you're dealing drugs,
doing any type of business in somebody else's territory,
you are absolutely open to discipline.
However that discipline is carried out,
it depends on the severity of the action.
Like, if you look at Medford, Somerville,
Winter Hill, South Boston,
you know who's who,
and you know where you should be doing things
and where you shouldn't,
because if you don't,
someone will get your attention one way or another,
and you probably won't like it.
But that's what happens.
You know, he's got some real good scenes in there
and a good storyline,
so, yeah, I'd say it's pretty accurate.
I'd give it a 7.
Listen, I just want to stop by and tell you myself.
Producer: Is that the zip code for South Boston?
No it's Charlestown.
Everybody has the Fighting Irish guy,
usually on their calf.
You know what I mean?
And, you know, it's not really like
a requirement or anything, it's just that they're proud.
I mean, and they should be.
They're always going to honor and respect it,
where they come from.
I think my guys can handle it without me.
I wouldn't hire them without you.
And I wouldn't hire you without them.
You're a unit.
Everybody in a crew has a role.
Part of his crew is the bank-robbery crew,
he's not going to put Joe Flipperhead on it.
He's not going to do that.
He's not going to hire one without the other.
They're going to do it together.
They do it right, they do it well,
they keep the money flowing.
The Irish Mafia, I mean,
they're loosely knit crews
that don't necessarily follow
the pyramid of the structure of power
that the Italians have.
You have your bookies, you have your drug dealers,
you have your hijackers.
Everybody has a role.
But the earner,
the guy that's filling the pockets of the higher-ups,
is the most important guy in that crew.
Just out of respect, smooth things over,
just take this for it. All right?
Not going to cut it.
You're going to do what I ask.
Yeah, he don't want his money.
He's much more valuable to him
continuing to make money.
Your earners,
you will do anything to keep them earning for you,
because they're hard to find.
Believe me when I tell you.
There's a lot of knuckleheads out there that,
you put them on the street,
they last about a week.
It's like, in reality, too,
it's the old-timers that really have the juice.
I always respected the old-timers more than anything,
because these guys have more wisdom in their pinky finger
than the guys that are young.
That's a 9.
I think that's probably why I haven't seen this movie,
because that seems kind of crazy.
Kind of elaborate to do a hit.
I didn't know that mob hit men were acrobats and stuntmen.
It just seems like a lot of unnecessary work
to get your message across.
Our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command.
So we shall flow a river forth to Thee,
and teeming with souls shall it ever be.
I don't know a lot of Irish mobsters that talk like that.
It's like a little bit of, what, the brogue?
Most of them were born here.
They don't come over from Dublin or anything like that.
Maybe I'm at 1 or 2.
I'm not quite sure. It was long time ago with that, but ...
I'm giving it a 2.
All right, that's enough.
And just f---ing like that, I was Winter Hill.
So, a lot of people believe that Whitey Bulger
was part of the Winter Hill gang.
He was at the beginning.
I don't think I would ever say he was the leader
of the Winter Hill gang.
He was the leader of the Bulger group,
or whatever you want to call it.
He was running with the gangs in South Boston.
There was a power struggle,
and they wanted to iron out those problems,
and the ultimate result of it was, "Hey, let's combine it."
You know, "Why don't we make ourselves strong?
Why don't we blend Southie and Winter Hill
and make it all one crew?"
And that's what they did.
But in 1978,
all of a sudden this huge indictment comes down
against the entire Winter Hill gang.
I mean, guys like Whitey, Stevie,
Howie, John Martorano.
The who's who of the Irish Mafia in 1978.
And it's funny because as it was taking its course,
you know, these guys either went on the lam
or some of them went to jail or were awaiting trial.
All of a sudden,
you hear the word "unindicted co-conspirators"
when it came to Steve Flemmi and Whitey Bulger.
So an unindicted co-conspirator
kind of raised a lot of antennas.
And, again, that's where people fail to realize,
is that once he eliminates Winter Hill,
he becomes the Bulger group.
I told him everything.
The IRA, Cahill, the whole bit.
You'll be dead before Stevie pulls your teeth.
Accurate. Accurate.
He says to Stevie Flemmi, he says,
"All right, take his teeth out."
You know, back in those days, they didn't have DNA,
so they would identify bodies by dental records.
I think in the movie too,
they refer to a dumping ground
where they dumped a lot of bodies. Quite a few.
I remember when the state police were digging it up,
it was bad, really bad.
I thought Depp was great.
Everything down to the walk, to the eyes,
you know, Whitey had these eyes
that were grayish blue
with, like, no emotion behind them.
And I think you'll see a lot of times in this movie
when they show the eyes,
like, they'll focus specifically on the eyes.
They looked pretty good.
I'm giving this one an 8.
I thought this one was gritty.
It was raw.
It was pretty accurate.
Ever since you came in the restaurant,
he can't stop yakking. It's Smoochy this, Smoochy that.
I always wore the Scally cap,
and I was kind of a tracksuit type of guy.
Yeah, a lot of Irish guys wear them.
It's not a requirement.
I just liked them.
You're a good boy, Mopes.
Don't think we don't remember favors.
You're welcome at our place anytime. Come on, boys.
The Irish will work with anybody that's making money
that's willing to work with them.
I mean, there was, like, a big ethnic stew of people.
You know, you didn't have to be
a certain religion or, like I said, ethnicity.
There was Italians,
there was Polish, there was Jewish.
If you have talent, you can earn,
they don't really care what your last name is
or what your religion is.
You know, it's about money.
You make the money, you can be as --
you know, you can be an atheist.
I don't know. Maybe a 6, 5. Right around there.
What the hell?
Transferring them to Rikers.
Sorry, baby.
So, if a guy goes to jail,
you know, I mean, he's risking that.
He's risking losing his family.
We got our money. You know, our envelopes.
Little Jackie: You're welcome.
There was less in it than what we were expecting, and ...
So?
Guys go to jail 10, 12, 14 years,
and they come out with nothing.
And what they come out to is
most times their friends have betrayed them
and taken over the businesses that they had
and never took care of them.
Never went to their wife and said,
"Hey, here's a little package." You know?
I mean, I think you should take care of them.
They're supposed to, but don't expect it.
You know, you see what this whole
organized-crime thing has become.
Disloyalty, no honor amongst thieves anymore.
All everybody wants to do
is look out for A No. 1.
I left organized crime
because I saw the direction that it was going.
I saw guys that lost their families
and were betrayed by their best friends,
and it was just too much.
And I realized that I made the wrong decisions in my life.
Little Jackie: How much were you expecting from me?
Payments are down.
The collections are down? Who's not paying?
Collections are always down.
You know? I mean ...
Most mob guys are great actors,
and their best performances
are when they're crying poor mouth.
We know you did a score for $80,000,
but you have no money.
You know, you can't even buy a cup of coffee. Come on.
In that scene, where she was asking for the money,
he's got the money, believe me, but not giving it to her.
You know, something maybe about a 5.
Yeah here's a few bucks for you.
You're lucky getting that.
No, don't sit down here. Get over there.
Nah, come on, sit down. Man, I'm f---ing with you.
Hey, can you get him a drink?
We need to talk.
I think it's a great scene.
I really do.
I mean, they're just hanging out, having a few beers.
It seemed like there were other patrons in the place.
You know, if you're in a mob bar
or a social club or whatever,
sometimes they'll just come over to the table
and just whisper something in your ear
or just say, you know,
"Come to the back room in 10 minutes. I got to talk to you."
You two are out there on your own, and we don't see a dime?
We don't run around like a couple of f---ing errand boys
for you for 15 years,
and what do we have to show for it? Nothing.
I liked the way that the boss let them know that,
you know, "Look, you guys got to kick up,"
and these guys are standing their ground,
saying, "Look, we do the scores, man."
You know, "I got kids to feed.
What are we, errand boys?"
And obviously if they've been doing it 15 years,
they're far from errand boys.
Never tell how much money you made on a score,
because, believe me, people will chase you down.
Like, I remember I specifically did one
that was really, really big,
and it was a windfall.
And I had people coming from every direction.
As soon as someone hears you did a big score in town,
they got their hand out.
Most guys live score to score.
If you hit a score,
you want to take a little time off.
You know, you got it. You got the money.
We're not setting up IRAs.
We're not diversifying our stock portfolios.
We're not thinking about --
we're thinking about today,
we're thinking about spending that money,
because we know that once we run out,
let's go out and do another one.
You know, it's not a long-term business
that you can retire from.
That's why you see guys out there
that are 75, 80 years old that are still hustling.
I'm going to go probably 8.5.
I really liked this.
Thanks for watching.
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