My substantially low expectations for biopic Gotti: Three Generations have gone up a little in the past week or so after Barry Levinson came on as director, and now there’s a little more reason to be hopeful. That’s because THR says that none other than Al Pacino has been cast in the film.

According to the story, he’s joining as Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce, who acted as a mentor and associate to John Gotti, who’s being played here by John Travolta. This is a person who’s had media portrayals in the past, most notably Anthony Quinn in the 1997 TV movie Gotti. The casting of Pacino makes sense not only because of his association with gangster roles (such as The Godfather, Scarface, Carlito’s Way, etc.), but because he recently worked with Levinson on another biopic, You Don’t Know Jack, which is about the controversial Jack Kevorkian.