Five days after it opened in the US, John Travolta’s new movie Gotti is still sitting at an almost unprecedented zero per cent rating on review  site Rotten Tomatoes.

Travolta stars as late crime boss John Gotti in the biopic, which has been called “the worst mob movie ever” and debuted with the zero score.

Helmed by Entourage’s Kevin Connolly, it has since shown no upward trend, with 25 negative reviews posted.

Gotti’s reviews are apparently its most entertaining feature.

“I’d rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch Gotti again,” wrote New York Post critic Johnny Oleksinski.

Tomatometer ratings are based on “the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive” for a film or TV show, provided there are at least five reviews.

While scoring zero is a rare dubious honour, it’s one Travolta, 64, has managed three times in what has been hailed as a record.

The actor’s other lemons are 1983’s Staying Alive, in which Travolta spent a lot of screen time in a lap-lap and twisted headband, and 1993’s Look Who’s Talking Now.

“It means there is no era in which Travolta isn’t, well, horrible,” said the Edmonton Journal.

After nearly a decade in the works… John Travolta's #GottiMovie is #Rotten at 0% https://t.co/TdJI9Mg9Hl pic.twitter.com/5IvNLBiWu8

— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) June 15, 2018

Gotti’s score is less than famous Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez stinker Gigli, which is sitting at six per cent.

Other films with the zero distinction include Jaws: The Revenge, Return to the Blue Lagoon, The Ridiculous 6 and National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers.

There are reportedly only 25 reviews because Gotti was largely held back from early screenings.

The movie took eight years, four directors and 44 producers to be made. In December studio Lionsgate pulled it from distribution 10 days before its scheduled release.

Reportedly at Travolta’s request, it was sold back to its production company. Executive producer Keya Morgan, who was pivotal in the buyback, said Gotti would be worth the wait: “It’s a masterpiece.”

Not according to critics, who despatched it to a shallow grave with mafia references.

“He may have been a murderer, but even Gotti deserved better than this,” said RogerEbert.com.

“The finished product belongs in a cement bucket at the bottom of the river,” said the New York Post. 

Gotti “deserves to get whacked,” said Rolling Stone.

Reel and real-life wife Kelly Preston with Travolta in Gotti. Photo: Vertical Entertainment

The Guardian made fun of “the bizarre quasi-camp spectacle of Travolta channelling the Teflon Don via Tony Soprano via the Dolmio dad – in a truly dazzling array of crunchy-looking wigs”.

Glenn Kenny from The New York Times summarised Gotti as a “dismal mess” and had a particular gripe: “You don’t put the theme from Shaft in a movie that is not Shaft. Come on.”

The Hollywood Reporter panned it as “pretty terrible”. Newsday called it as “a connect-the-dots disaster”. And much of the rap-infused score by Pitbull was said to evoke “a Casio keyboard on the funk-porn setting”.

The New York Post took particular issue with Travolta’s performance, describing it as “a leather-faced freak show” and describing how in one scene, “he yells “whatsamattayou?” and slaps one of his minions”.

Uproxx seconded that: “Whatever else you could say about John Travolta, when he’s bad … he is mesmerizingly bad.”

The leading man’s real-life wife Kelly Preston plays Gotti’s wife Victoria. Critics said she “howls like Medea”, is “shrill” and channels Lorraine Bracco in The Sopranos.

Travolta tried his darndest to promote his passion project, pulling out the Grease dance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on June 13:

Danny Zuko is on the show tonight!! Tell me more! Tell me more!!! #FallonTonight #Travolta #Grease #GottiMovie pic.twitter.com/elBfuhBslx

— Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon) June 14, 2018

On the plus side, Gotti has a 78 per cent audience score from 6900 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Clearly critics are out of touch with the people,” the movie’s publicist Dennis Rice told Deadline.

Gotti does not yet have an Australian release date.