Luca Brasi
This article describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. (July 2016) |
Luca Brasi | |
---|---|
enforcer | |
Occupation | Gangster |
Relatives | Kelly O'Rourke (lover, murder victim) O'Rourke child (biological child, murder victim) |
Luca Brasi is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather, as well as its 1972 film adaptation. In the film, he was portrayed by Lenny Montana,[1] an ex-wrestler[2] and former bodyguard and enforcer for the Colombo crime family.
Fictional character biography
Backstory
Luca Brasi is Don Vito Corleone's personal enforcer and the only man Vito himself fears. While slow-witted and brutish, Brasi is fiercely loyal with a reputation as a savage and remorseless killer. He once murdered six men single-handedly to protect Don Corleone; only when Vito himself ordered him to stop did Brasi end his rampage, which contributed significantly to ending the "Olive Oil War." Brasi's loyalty to Don Corleone and the Corleone family is unquestioned; he is said to have killed a Corleone soldier just for making the family look bad.
In a notable incident, Brasi intercepted two hitmen sent by Al Capone to assassinate Don Corleone. Brasi subdued both men with his bare hands before binding and gagging them with towels. Watching, as Brasi brutally dismembered and butchered his partner with an axe, the other man became terrified and choked to death on the towel.[3]
An old Sicilian woman, who had once worked as the neighborhood midwife, tells Vito's youngest son Michael that, years earlier, she attended a young Irish girl as she gave birth to Brasi's child. Brasi forced the midwife to throw the silent infant into a burning furnace, saying he wanted none of "that race" to live and a few days later, murdered the girl. Fearing she would be next, the distraught midwife sought the Corleone family's help. Don Corleone intervened, protecting the woman while covering up Brasi's crime and bringing him into his family, thus gaining his undying service and loyalty.
In The Godfather
Brasi is surprised to be invited to
Suspicious of drug kingpin Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo and his dealings with the
When Michael succeeds his father as Don of the Corleone family, Brasi's role as personal enforcer/bodyguard is filled by Al Neri, whom Michael "has ma[d]e...his Luca Brasi".
In other media
Luca Brasi plays a major role in the prequel novel
Brasi has a larger role in
Brasi inspired
According to film historian Laurent Bouzereau, the scene in Return of the Jedi in which Princess Leia strangles crime boss Jabba the Hutt to death with the very chain he used to bind her to his throne was inspired by Brasi's death scene in The Godfather.[5]
References
- ^ "The Godfather (1972)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-04-18. Retrieved 2014-06-24.
- ^ "Why the gangsters still love The Godfather of all movies". Irish Independent. April 13, 2001.
- ISBN 978-0-7493-2468-1.
- ISBN 9781603763721.
- ISBN 978-0345409812.