Luca Brasi

Luca Brasi is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, as well as its 1972 film adaptation (portrayed by Lenny Montana).

In the novel and film

In The Godfather, Luca Brasi is one of Don Vito Corleone's personal enforcers. Brasi is portrayed as slow-witted and brutish, but his ruthlessness and his unwavering loyalty to Don Corleone means he is both feared and respected. Fluent in Italian and able to handle himself in any fight, he has a dark reputation among the underworld as a savage killer. Vito Corleone describes Luca Brasi (and later Al Neri) as a "man who goes around life with a sign that says 'kill me' painted on, this makes everyone want to kill him, but yet no one can. Eventually this man finds someone who he doesn't want to kill and fears that this man will be the one to kill him".

At his sister Connie's wedding, Michael Corleone tells his girlfriend Kay Adams the story of how Don Corleone helped his godson Johnny Fontane. Michael explains that his father went to convince Les Halley, the bandleader, to release Johnny from a personal service contract that was holding back Johnny's singing career. Halley refuses the initial offer of $20,000. Don Corleone returns the next day with Genco Abbandando, his consigliere, and Luca Brasi. Vito holds a gun to Halley's head while telling him that either his brains or his signature will be on the contract. The terrified bandleader signs a release for only $10,000 within an hour.

Don Corleone entered the negotiations personally. He offered Les Halley twenty thousand dollars to release Johnny Fontane from the personal services contract. Halley offered to take only fifty percent of Johnny’s earnings. Don Corleone was amused. He dropped his offer from twenty thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars. The band leader, obviously not a man of the world outside his beloved show business, completely missed the significance of this lower offer. He refused. The next day Don Corleone went to see the band leader personally. He brought with him his two best friends, Genco Abbandando, who was his Consigliere, and Luca Brasi. With no other witnesses Don Corleone persuaded Les Halley to sign a document giving up all rights to all services from Johnny Fontane upon payment of a certified check to the amount of ten thousand dollars. Don Corleone did this by putting a pistol to the forehead of the band leader and assuring him with the utmost seriousness that either his signature or his brains would rest on that document in exactly one minute. Les Halley signed. Don Corleone pocketed his pistol and handed over the certified check.

Shortly before Vito Corleone is shot, Brasi (on Vito Corleone's instructions) intends to draw out drug lord Virgil Sollozzo and the rest of the Don's enemies. Brasi then meets with Bruno Tattaglia, the son of one of the Don's rival bosses, Philip Tattaglia. Sollozzo shows up, and after promises of friendship and a job offer, grabs one of Luca's hands and pins it onto the bar with a knife; while an assassin then garrotes him from behind. Brasi's body is thrown into the sea.

A Sicilian message is later sent to the Corleone family: a fish wrapped in Brasi's bulletproof vest. The meaning is made clear to the Corleones.

In the book, the text reads: “Sonny lit a cigar and took a shot of whiskey. Michael, bewildered, said. 'What the hell does that fish mean?' It was Tom Hagen the Irisher, the Consigliere, who answered him. 'The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,' he said. 'It’s an old Sicilian message.'”

In the movie, this was slightly changed to the more well known version. Corleone's caporegime Peter Clemenza explains: "It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."

In the novel, it is said that Brasi could commit a murder all by himself, without help, which made a criminal conviction almost impossible. He is also known for killing, in two weeks, six men who attempted to kill Don Corleone.

In the novel, Michael learns that, years earlier, Brasi had impregnated a young Irish prostitute and later murdered her. On the day of his daughter's birth, he forced the midwife, under pain of death, to hurl the child into a furnace, an act for which she never forgave herself. The midwife, who describes Brasi as an unholy demon, went to Don Corleone for protection, and he covered up Brasi's crime. With this, the Don earned Brasi's undying service and loyalty.

Another early incident involved Brasi killing off two of Al Capone's henchmen hired to kill Don Corleone. Brasi subdued both of them and tied and gagged them with towels stuffed in their mouths. He then hacked one of them to pieces with an axe. When he went to finish off the other one, he found that the man had gone through a shock convulsion and choked to death on the towel.^[1]

In other media

It is also briefly mentioned in Mark Winegardner's 2004 sequel The Godfather Returns that Luca Brasi himself killed Jack Woltz's prized racehorse Khartoum and delivered its head into his bedroom. In the video game, however, the horse is killed by Rocco Lampone and Aldo Trapani.

Brasi's role as personal enforcer and bodyguard to the Corleone family boss is taken over by Al Neri in The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III.

Luca Brasi appears early on in The Godfather: The Game. Luca is assigned by the Godfather to rescue the protagonist, Aldo Trapani, from a brutal gang and train him. Luca functions as a "trainer" for the player, showing how to perform various game functions, such as shooting and punching. The player is a witness to Brasi's eventual death and must escape in order to inform the family.

Luca is also mentioned by Michael Corleone in the video game version of The Godfather Part II, where the player, Dominic, acquires Luca's old apartment.

References