Tommy Vercetti
Tommy Vercetti is a fictional character, the protagonist and playable character in the 2002 video game , the fourth main title in the Grand Theft Auto series. He is voiced by Ray Liotta. Tommy is the first playable protagonist in the Grand Theft Auto series that has a proper voice actor, with full dialogue.
Tommy is an ex-gangster or ex-made man for the Forelli family, a fictional Italian Mafia family in the Grand Theft Auto universe. After being released from prison in 1986, Tommy agrees to take part in a deal for his old boss and friend, in which he is ambushed. In an attempt to find the man who set up the ambush, Tommy rises through the ranks of Vice City's criminal underworld. After murdering the man who set up the ambush, he takes over his criminal empire, which he further expands, ultimately becoming the kingpin of Vice City.
Character design
Tommy, an Italian-American, is portrayed with a tall, swarthy, handsome appearance, combed dark brown, almost black hair, and a constant five o'clock shadow. He first appears wearing a light blue-green Hawaiian shirt with dark blue palm trees printed on it, a gold pearl necklace around his neck, a gold watch around his left wrist, and a pair of blue jeans and white sneakers. This outfit becomes known as Tommy's "street" clothes. As the game progresses, Tommy is offered more wardrobe options: he obtains a blue-purple pastel suit with the sleeves rolled up over a black dress shirt and black loafers, as well as the option of a dark pinstripe suit labeled as "Mr. Vercetti". A light green costume is available to perform a bank robbery, complete with a hockey mask, and is even able to wear the uniform for an allied gang, among many others.Tommy Vercetti, in several ways, exhibits characteristics of fictional drug lord Tony Montana from the 1983 film Scarface. This coincides with the heavy themes and appearance of the movie that has been implemented into Vice City. Among these characteristics, his exile from his old home, his rise to power. Tommy is also a hired assassin, has killed his own collaborators, taken over his temporary boss's business and rebelled against his former leader, as Tony Montana had. The only notable difference is that the final gunfight in Montana's mansion sees Montana eventually killed, whereas the final gunfight in Tommy's mansion sees Tommy managing to single-handedly take down his captors and survive.
Characteristics
Tommy Vercetti is depicted as both intelligent and temperamental; he is easily angered and quick to resort to violence. He has no hesitation about killing, though many of his victims are in turn trying to kill Tommy as well, or have done something that requires them to be killed. Despite all this, Tommy does also show a softer side as seen with his relations with Mercedes Cortez, the daughter of Juan Garcia Cortez, and Earnest Kelly, an elderly employee at the Print Works printing company that he buys later in the game: the former serves as a love interest for Tommy, while the latter is more of a father figure due to his childhood memories of working with his father at a printworks.Biography
Early life
Tommy Vercetti was born to an Italian-American family and was raised in Liberty City, where his father worked for an unknown company working on its printers. It is unknown whether he owned the printing company or not but Tommy used to clean its rollers and suggests he lived a normal and moral life. When he was a teenager, he would befriend Mafia mobster Sonny Forelli, whom was a rising force in the Forelli Crime Family and would start working for the Forelli family, earning the syndicates' trust and eventually becoming a made man in the Mafia.In 1971, jealous and nervous of Tommy's rising reputation inside the Mafia and the Liberty City crime scene, Sonny sent Tommy to kill a key mobster in the Harwood District for unknown reasons. In actuality, what was supposed to be Tommy's clean hit would turn out to be a threat set up by Sonny. When Tommy arrived, eleven men would ambush him due to Sonny having probably warned Tommy's enemies of the impending threat posed by him. Tommy would miraculously survive after killing all eleven of them, but would end up being arrested in the process and sent to prison for multiple charges of murder. He would be placed on death row, but due to the Forelli Mafia's influence and possibly interference, he only served fifteen years. He also earned the title "The Harwood Butcher" for how he singlehandedly slew eleven men on his own.
Release from prison
Fresh out of prison in 1986, Tommy is immediately dispatched by then Don Sonny Forelli to Vice City in order to participate in a drug deal. This deal was organized due to Sonny's fear that Tommy's presence in Liberty City would cause problems for his organization as Tommy's Harwood Slaughter of 1971 was still fresh in the minds of police and would thus cause the law enforcers in Liberty City to start possibly harassing the Forelli family. Sonny orders Tommy to expand into the drug business in the south and to stay there for a while finding opportunities for a good business.Tommy arrives at the deal as a supervisor between the Forelli Crime Family and the nearly wiped out Vance Crime Family, led by brothers Lance and Victor Vance. Just then, a group of masked assailants open fire on them, killing Victor Vance and Forelli's men, resulting in Tommy losing both the money and the drugs, from which he narrowly escapes with Ken Rosenberg, the Forellis' crooked lawyer and his contact in Vice City. With the promise to Sonny to retrieve both the drugs and money, he then sets out to find and kill the party responsible. While investigating, Tommy makes a number of allies and employers who offer him help, including retired Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez, who helped set up the exchange; music producer Kent Paul, who maintains connections with the city's criminal underworld; Lance Vance, who seeks revenge for his brother's death and to reclaim their stolen money and drugs; Texan real estate developer Avery Carrington; and drug baron Ricardo Diaz.
Business ventures
After Tommy and Lance lead an assault on Diaz's estate and kill him, Tommy begins to disobey Sonny's orders and enjoys the empire he claimed from Diaz, without paying any tribute to the Forelli family, enraging Sonny, who constantly demands a larger cut of the profits from Tommy, and Lance, who wants more respect from Tommy and also more control in the family. During this time, Tommy forms his own organization, called the "Vercetti Gang," from the remains of Diaz's gang, and becomes acquainted with Umberto Robina, leader of the Los Cabrones Cuban street gang, whom he helps end a war against a rival Haitian gang, as well as "Big" Mitch Baker, leader of the Vice City Bikers, whom he helps with a few favours, seeking to establish a partnership with both gangs. He also briefly works for the heavy metal band Love Fist, now managed by Kent Paul, helps Cortez leave the city with stolen military equipment, and buys out several nearly bankrupt companies to use as fronts for illicit businesses.Tommy and the Forelli family's conflict reaches a boiling point when Tommy kills Forelli henchmen sent to seize his business revenue, and Sonny personally visits him in Vice City. Due to Lance's betrayal, he is forced into a large shootout with the Forelli crew, in which he kills Sonny, Lance, and the hit squad, finally securing his empire and gang in the city, with Ken Rosenberg as his main partner. It is also during this major gunfight that Tommy discovers that Sonny actually set up the eleven people to ambush Tommy and caused him to spend fifteen years in prison.
At the end of the game, Tommy is shown to have become an extremely powerful figure in Vice City's criminal underworld. He is in charge of the Vercetti Gang, the most powerful organization in Vice City, has alliances with both the Los Cabrones and Vice City Bikers, lives in a huge mansion, owns many businesses that he uses as fronts for his illegal operations, and is also in charge of the drug trade in Vice City. Furthermore, Sonny's death marked the beginning of the Forelli family's decline in Liberty City, so most likely the Forellis never bothered Tommy again. Tommy, at the end of the game, is the kingpin of Vice City.
Later life
Not much is known about Tommy's life after the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, though he most likely continued ruling over Vice City's criminal underworld undisputed. By 1992, he cut his ties with Ken Rosenberg after sending him to rehab in the state of San Andreas. Tommy is mentioned in The Introduction, a short prologue film to , in a scene where Ken tries to call Tommy after getting out of rehab, but fails, leading him to search for a new job.Influences and analysis
Prior to the release of Vice City, IGN stated that Tommy was likely to "leave the same kind of imprint on kids today that portrayal of Ray Sinclair left on every high school and college kid who saw Something Wild back in 1986." They also compared Liotta's portrayal of Tommy to his portrayal of Henry Hill in Goodfellas.When asked about his portrayal of Tommy, Liotta stated that "it was hard work." He said that "you're pretty much putting yourself in hands and doing whatever they want so there's not much for you to do creatively."