Based on the New York Times Best Selling memoir,
Rat Bastards
As a kid, John “Red” Shea idolized the notorious Irish godfather James “Whitey” Bulger. John grows up in the harsh but clannishly close-knit projects of South Boston. As a boy his time is spent fearlessly fighting in the ring and on the sidewalks. Before he is 20 Shea is on his way to become a legend in professional boxing, but is caught at a crossroad and can’t resist Whitey’s offer to live life as a gangster. At the young age of 21, John “Red” Shea is already the protégé to Whitey. Their multimillion-dollar organization rules over New England with robbery, loan sharking, drug dealing and murder. John is being groomed to eventually head one of the most profitable organized crime outfits in American history. Gina a slightly older Italian girl starts a passionate love affair with John. Her strict mother, worried, sits John down, curious about how a boy from the streets can afford to buy her daughter so may nice presents. He does not admit to being a gangster but promises that nothing bad will ever happen to her daughter.
Shea is at the pinnacle of power and wealth when the Feds obliterate the mob in a well-orchestrated sweep of over fifty arrests. All around Red the older men Bulger held closest, from bosses to soldiers, crumble and turn informant to save their own hides.
A cop interrogates Red with the threat of 60 years of hard time if he doesn’t snitch, to which John, handcuffed, lifts himself above his chair, stares at him with his cold steel blue-eyed glare and says, “It doesn’t get any worse than life. Does it?” Shea, alone, can’t be broken and holds to his honor — earning a dozen years of hard time as a reward. Nothing can break him not even the loss of Gina, the love of his life and the family they could have together. Whitey, who Red had protected, six years into John’s bit turned out to be working secretly with the FBI for decades. A connection in law enforcement alerts Whitey to avoid arrest, which earned him his current status as number two on the FBI’s Most Wanted List — for 19 counts of murder and more than 8 other crimes.
Now free, every night as Red drifts to sleep, he dreams of hunting down King-Rat, James “Whitey” Bulger, and the rest of the Rats who didn’t walk-the-walk, betraying not only Red but their own souls and snapping their necks for breaking a code that goes back generations.
