“City of fear”: the fall of the five families that ruled New York in the ’70s | Argentinian time

Omerta, the Cosa Nostra code of silence, was finally broken. Nothing is the same anymore, the one who is not an informer, was caught or is dead. The power and the number of soldiers is no longer that of the golden age where an unbreakable code of honor protected everything. At some point, this way of operating in the shadows allowed the mafia, with its clans, and its strong territorial dominance to grow until it dominated the vital rhythm of one of the most emblematic cities on earth: New York, with its history and its way to beat that is already an icon. And a fraction of that is the mafia, part of the whole. But there was a turning point.

Everything began to change, as seen in City of fearWhen the lack of control in the streets was such that the State itself had to declare war against organized crime; or perhaps because he came to play in the big leagues, stinging so high that by managing to touch interests of those powers that are not seen but that exist, they annoy. But hey, it is true that the less subtle methods of the mafia are not the best: in the manner of the street, that of taking what you want from the handsome, the one that the Puritans cannot accept as irrational and with that lethal dose of selfishness and unscrupulousness that in fiction entertains and is attractive because it is a complex aspect of the human, but that in the real world, without a doubt, chills the bones and makes us swallow slowly.

This Netflix documentary explores the game of cat and mouse that began to be played in the big apple, of which everyone wanted a bite, in the 1970s, when New York was controlled by five families of Italian-American origin, running the underworld of crime, gambling, drugs and prostitution, as well as legal businesses such as construction, garbage handling, gastronomy and why not, more than once, playing a preponderant role in local politics and justice.

Obviously it is a biased documentary, in which stereotypes and the false dichotomy of good and bad is replicated, but if the subject attracts you, as a viewer, this is a high-level compilation work, with unique archive images, good use of the theatricalization of the events narrated by first-hand protagonists (for example, the federal agent who put microphones in restaurants, houses and cars of the heads of the clans in question) and with an impeccable photograph, with management of locations and great shots resolution that give a remarkable art to what you look at. It has a rhythm that helps to understand how those times were.

Undoubtedly it has all the elements that attract from gangster films: betrayals, violence, cheating, squeezes, secrets, spies, buchones, adding to all the aura of glamor or charm that movies like The Godfather, Good boys or the same iconic HBO series The Sopranos They have left that way of life, showing intimate aspects of the gangsters, beyond the headlines or the media impact. It is a look from another side, of the government agents.

It is told in three chapters: one that explains the rules of the mafia for neophytes, another that explains the operation of seeking evidence and another that talks about the trial of the heads of the organizations, about three hours in total as an army of agents Secrets carried out a complex investigation that led to the end of an era. Or at least I modified it a lot, throwing Rudy Giuliani into the political arena, who was the district attorney who managed to dismantle a large part of the organizations and then was mayor for several years as a heavy-handed trustee. It is one of the testimonies that is added to the agents who had to gather evidence, and that are opposed to some former participants in life who also tell their version.

It is narrated how the head of the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese families were found to incriminate them, using the RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal statute, translated into Spanish as the Civil Blackmail Law , Influence and Corrupt Organizations that allows to judge the heads of organized crime by making them responsible for any crime that their associates carry out) instituting the investigation in teams in search of concrete evidence. In this way, an individual was no longer prosecuted for his actions, but as part of a criminal organization.

It is an entertaining and interesting story for the curious spectator of the mafia dynamics. But it allows other different readings not only focusing on the stigmatization of a sector, since despite being a story of a bell, for example, it looks like a young Donald Trump, when he managed the family construction company, almost inevitably had some relationship with Cosa Nostra when construction in Manhattan was a proliferating business. And today he is president of the giant of the North. So not everything is as it seems, but one thing is clear: it is not personal, this is business. And business is business.

Fear City: New York vs The Mafia. Available on Netflix.

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