When you see Pete Davidson reading “Okinawa” while wearing a satin bomber jacket, blue contact lenses, and a slicked-back wig on Coney Island, you can’t help but be surprised. This is the work. He pursued the post for three years.
The movie Tommy Karate, which Davidson co-wrote and is now filming all around Brooklyn, follows Tommy Pitera, a soldier from the Bonanno criminal family from Gravesend, Brooklyn, who is feared for his martial arts skills and suspected of up to 60 killings. This disturbing tale is based on Philip Carlo’s 2009 book The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath. Davidson has referred to it as “the greatest mob story never told,” and given Pitera’s true life, it’s difficult to disagree. The man’s karate prowess gave him the moniker, which he later used to become one of New York’s most feared murderers.
Cameras captured Davidson and co-star Camila Mendes on Coney Island on August 25. Mendes was wearing a dazzling pink halter dress and shoes, while Davidson was sweating through a suit from the 1970s with those eerie blue contacts. Later that nite, his appearance changed significantly: he wore a satin dress, fake blood, bruises, and, somewhat mysteriously, a yellow Minions hat that he had allegedly picked up in between takes someplace close to the boardwalk. It sounds disorganized. In context, however, it appears to be an actor and director engaged in a long-term creative process.
A solid crew is working on the movie. Justin Chon, the director of Blue Bayou and, more recently, the critically lauded adaptation of Pachinko, infuses material that may otherwise go toward pure genre violence with a character-driven sensibility. DEA Agent Jim Hunt, who ultimately brought Pitera down, is portrayed by Paul Walter Hauser, who gave one of the best performances in recent years in Black Bird. It’s important to note that Hunt also assisted in El Chapo’s downfall, which lends the narrative an almost unbelievable feel before it ever reaches the mob scenes.
Davidson has spent more than three years working on this project. For someone whose public life has frequently progressed more quickly than his cinematic career, that is a long time to carry something. In addition to being the primary actor, he is also a producer, indicating a degree of personal commitment that goes beyond financial gain. It’s possible that this initiative will change people’s perceptions of him as a serious performer, or it might not go as planned. With passion endeavors, that is always a danger.
Since his conviction in 1992 on six counts of murder and drug trafficking, the real Tommy Pitera, now 71, has been incarcerated at a federal facility. He has never made public remarks regarding a movie based on his life. It’s difficult to tell if that silence indicates apathy or something else. It’s evident that Brooklyn—the Bay Ridge streets and the beachfront of Coney Island—is offering a genuine setting for a narrative that is wholly based in those places. Filming it at the precise location where it occurred has a certain poetic quality. In the end, viewers will determine if the film merits the weight of that history.
