MovieChat Forums > Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven (2002) Discussion > What if Tommy had rejected the Mafia?

What if Tommy had rejected the Mafia?

posted 11 years ago by FullLoader
1 reply | jump to latest

At the start of the game, Tommy is a taxi driver. A dead end job with low pay, then all of a sudden while he is on a break he is forced to drive Sam and Paulie to safety. We see him with the money and refusing to co-operate with the Mafia (he says "It's better to be poor and alive than rich and dead"). After he goes back to work and after picking up some more fares he is attacked by Morello's men and he goes to Saleri's for help. After this his contract is terminated with the taxi company and Tommy decides to join the Mafia. And then the main story begins.

Why did Tommy join the Mafia after his initial reluctance to join them? Why did he not think "Lost Heaven is too dangerous for me" and leave the city as soon as possible? He could have moved to the other side of the country (like he does at the end of the game). That way he would have lived and not ended up being shot on his own front lawn.

It does sound stupid because if he had left Lost Heaven after mission 2 then we wouldn't have had a game (and he wouldn't have met his future wife and had a daughter) but Tommy could have lived for longer had he have stuck to his original intentions and rejected the Mafia.

[–] averagejoeman2013 10 years ago

Speculation of course but here is my take on it....there are two possibilities.

First, I believe it was more out of necessity to protect himself. Even though he wasnt a member of the Don Salieri's crew per se, Morello's crew did think as much. Therefore; if he was out and alone on his own, he was already a dead man. And with the death of the henchmen sent to kill him, any reservation about him being an innocent bystander were long gone and Thomas Angelo would have deduced as much.

Secondly, he wasnt a rich man. I believe he was content with the money and wouldnt have joined even with meager income during a depression as long as he had a job. But with the destruction of his taxi and no job (and likely a bad reputation), his prospects went from slim to nothing. Whether the money he had would last a week or a year, it would run out and then he would have no options. This was reinforced when he does the 180 saying it was better to die rich and than to live and be poor.

Those two are my take on it.

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