Waste of time

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

When l'd watched this movie for the first time in 1986, l found it's good, after more twenty years revisiting this picture again in full restoration DVD with original audio (UGH!)...l still find a fine work from Terence Young,but have two things that could explain the movie didn't get a proper respect from the viewer, firstly was released in same time with Godfather, second the producer was Dino de Laurentiis and he is foreign and didn't has a usual critic treatment like the American has....this is absolutely a naked true, foreign producers didn't have any respect from Americans and critical, but the movie is quite good,the casting is fine, Charles Bronson, Lino Ventura,Joseph Wiseman,among others...the movie is based in a true events and has a remarkable job from Charles Bronson as Joseph Valachi who actually died in prison.Resume: First Watch: 1986 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5

I must agree with other IMDb reviewers who found this film flat and unconvincing. It has that "early 70s. low budget" look to it and lacks the realistic grittiness of The French Connection and Taxi Driver. Also, it definitely does not hold up well over time. First of all, Charles Bronson bears absolutely no resemblance to Joe Valachi whatsoever. His Italian accent and mannerisms are atrocious! The supporting cast is somewhat believable but not outstanding. The story itself does not flow very well and one blaring omission is that the actual Joe Valachi was coached by Federal agents prior to his Grand Jury testimony: i.e. his "knowledge of the pay scale for low-ranking mobsters in Detroit". Joe Valachi had a sixth grade education and absolutely no knowledge of anything outside of New York City! Personally, I found the History Channel documentary "Joe The Rat Valachi" much more informative, accurate, smoothly written and conforming to the novel written by Peter Maas.

One problem is that it's episodic in structure, more like a chronologically depicted documentary than a movie.It is also ruined (at least, for me) by overdubbed dialogue. It sounds like a movie made in Italy in Italian and English, and then RE-dubbed over the English speakers very own English. Are you following this? The resulting, dry-sounding dialogue leaves you with half of an actor's performance. It can never match the original utterances. Otherwise, the character actors are wonderful. So many great mugs with evil dispositions. And Bronson is great. Probably his best role. A real shame about the audio. Hard to believe so many films are so badly dubbed.

I watched the movie on demand on cable and its amazing that the Valachi Papers was released nearly within a 6 month time span of the Godfather; both films could not be further apart in the spectrum. Bronson was all wrong for the part; the forced accents from all of the principals made it look and sound more like a skit from Saturday Night Live. It was just plain horrible. It was as if they were just trying to cover a time line as if they were doing a documentary. When you watch it, its presentation comes off dated, like a low budget 1950s style movie. The music is heavy and melodramatic. This film should be remade with a director who can take his time and with writers who will work up a screenplay befitting this amazing story. I mean before Joe Valachis testimony, very few people knew the workings of La Cosa Nostra and it was years before J Edgar Hoover even admitted there was organized crime.