Luca Brasi

Luca Brasi is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather, as well as its 1972 film adaptation. In the film, he was portrayed by Lenny Montana, an ex-wrestler and former bodyguard for the Colombo crime family.

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Brasi was Vito Corleone's personal enforcer. Fluent in Sicilian and able to handle himself in any fight, he had a dark reputation among the underworld as a savage killer.

Brasi had an unhappy childhood due to an alcoholic father who would frequently beat both him and his mother. Eventually Brasi decided he had had enough and killed his father shortly after his father had induced a miscarriage in his wife. Soon after, Brasi killed one of his neighbors, Mr. Lowry, by pushing him off the roof in revenge for impregnating his mother.

The tales of Brasi's prowess became legend. One such incident involved Brasi killing off Benny Amato and Joey Daniello, two of Al Capone's henchmen hired to kill Don Corleone. Brasi subdued both of them and tied and gagged them with towels stuffed in their mouths. He then leisurely hacked Amato to pieces. When he went to finish off Daniello he found that he had gone through a shock convulsion and choked to death on the towel.

Brasi's talent was that he could do a job all by himself, without confederates or backup who might rat him out. Since Luca made sure to leave no witnesses, this made a criminal conviction almost impossible. He is also known for killing, in two weeks, six men who attempted to kill Corleone at a festival. These deaths ended the famous "Olive Oil War". His almost fanatical loyalty to Corleone was unquestioned, and was said to have killed a Corleone soldier just for making the Corleone family look bad. Brasi often claimed that he'd sooner kill himself than betray the Godfather.

Luca's killing ability, his strength in a fight, and the sheer terror his reputation generated in the New York underworld was said to account for nearly a third of the Corleone's military strength, just by himself.