The movie, directed by the actor Kevin Connolly, does not recover from the opening outburst. Its unstuck-in-time structure is, one supposes, meant to be anchored by a scene threaded through the narrative in which Gotti’s eldest son, John A. Gotti, visits his ailing father in prison.

But “Gotti” mostly incoherently bounces around the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, recounting “highlights” of his criminal exploits, including the assassination of the mob boss Paul Castellano in 1985. One suspects that jumbled structure was used because a linear account of Gotti’s criminal career would reveal little beyond banal tawdriness.

Far from being any kind of Machiavellian mastermind, the Gotti here is driven by mere resentment. In a nightclub, conferring with an underboss, he points out various thugs and notes his dislike and distrust of them all. This Gotti is nothing more nor less than petty, but again, the movie declines to put that trait in the service of any point.

For many scenes, it seems that Mr. Connolly asked himself, “What would Martin Scorsese do?” All his answers are wrong. His staging of shots is not even rudimentary. And when he tries for a slightly sophisticated effect, he whiffs. There’s a shallow-focus view of Gotti and his crew walking down the street near their social club. The background is impressionistically out of focus as intended, while the characters walking toward the camera are … well, they’re out of focus, too. Just less out of focus than the background.