At the end of the famous 1931 Warner Brothers crime film “Little Caesar,” Edward G. Robinson as Caesar Enrico Bandello aka “Rico,” the Al Capone-modeled gangster who’s reached the end of the line asks “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?”
Former football great and shunned exonerated murder defendant O.J. Simpson’s sentencing in Las Vegas to some 9 to 33 years in prison for robbery and kidnapping now have some hoping for mercy — hoping that this is the end of the 14 year-old running O.J. story and his nearly hypnotic hold over the news media.
Crooks and Liars’ David Neiwert thinks it isn’t:
Perhaps with O.J. put away and out of sight, the media will finally forget about him and move on to other, more worthwhile, news stories to obsess about.
But I doubt it. Indeed, I look forward (well, not really) to the announcement that O.J.’s life in prison will be the subject of a new reality show on Fox: “The Longest Yard.”
And, indeed, it will NOT BE.
O.J.’s life is the stuff not of just print media and books or a TV special but of a major movie. There was one quickie movie made in 1995 — but get ready to eventually see a major production.
Somewhere along the line — whether authorized by his relatives (and sparking a huge outcry over the profits), based on something by murdered victim Ron Goldman’s family, or a freelance piece that overcomes any legal hurdles — the O.J. saga will be turned into a MAJOR motion picture dramatizing how one man dreamed the American dream and had it all (adulation, the top of his career, and a beautiful wife and kids), almost lost it (his murder trial), was shunned by most of the world and then put away basically on a robbery charge, much as the Rico-based character Al Capone was eventually imprisoned for tax evasion when they couldn’t get him on murder charges. One dramatic point would be O.J.’s plea to the judge at sentencing.
You can BET some scriptwriters are writing it right now — because there finally seems to be a Hollywood ending.
And, indeed, there are other dramatic parallels to Little Caesar. Read my previous post on the OJ sentence which contains a video of O.J.’s rambling, often teary but also assertive plea to the judge. Then watch the clip below from the still-great film, showing how the cop provokes the down-and-out gangster to cast wise judgment to the wind and surface to show defiance and make his best case that he’s not down and out.
By some accounts and by their own claims, by going after Simpson’s assets so doggedly, the Goldman family triggered his defiance button where there was no way he was going to let them dictate what he had to turn over to them…leading him to that hotel room in Vegas and his final statement to the judge trying to explain who he really is and why he really did what he did.
OJ was contrite, Rico wasn’t – but the same dramatic element is there, of someone’s uncontrollable personal hubris overcoming self-protective decisions and cemented in their personal perspective that they’re still who they claim they are. Here’s the segment from Little Caesar:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.