Vinnie Cannoli (Guns Gore & Cannoli series)

*For the short film version of this character, see* Vinnie Cannoli (Hell Bent for Whiskey)

*The Main Man himself*

> "In goes the hot lead, out goes the guts!"
>
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**Vincent** "**Vinnie" Cannoli** is the playable main character of the *Guns, Gore & Cannoli* series. He is an independent for-hire mob enforcer, who unwillingly gains notoriety for surviving the Thugtown Incident of 1928. The living embodiment of the Prohibition Years' prospering crime scene, Vinnie is ruthless in his pursuits and will stop at few things to get his way. His no-nonsense, but boastful and bold attitude have brought him far, but certainly didn't prepare him for the full-blown cannibal horror show that would soon become an integral part of his life.

## Vinnie Cannoli

"Alright, who's next? Step right up! Fifty bullets, no waiting! Ah, my next customer..."

### Aliases

The Tyrant of Thugtown
Thugtown Slayer
Mr. Vinnie

## Physical description

### History

Vincent Cannoli was born in Syndicate City on an unknown date. Of Italian descent, likely Sicilian origins, as a child, he was often made Cannoli by his mother, both his namesake and favorite food. In his adult life, he would become a respected and soon-to-be feared gangster, during the Prohibition Years in the 1920s, apparently never sticking to one particular crime family, instead preferring to be his own boss and take odd jobs and contracts from various gangs. During this time, he met many like-minded people, but only remained true to one thing only throughout his career: cold hard cash.

One fateful day in March 1928, just a few days after St. Patrick's Day, known Italian-American mobster Vinnie Cannoli went on his way to the crime-ridden city of Thugtown. He was sent by a mob boss named Belluccio, who had called him earlier and hired him to travel to his location and find a man named Frankie The Fly and bring him to his tower in the city, offering an unusually large amount of money as a reward. Despite the town's reputation, recent violent happenings and loss of contact from it, Vinnie figured it'd be an easy job with a quick buck to be made regardless and accepted, jumping aboard one of the last ships headed for Thugtown.

As his voyage comes to an end and his vessel, a freighter called the *S.S. Lucky*, finally reaches its destination, Vinnie lies down in his cabin. Having studied and reread many of the published articles on the "Drunken Riots" during the journey, along with some newspaper clippings about the Belluccio family and the Prohibition, he knew that something was wrong, more so than the government wanted to let on, but remained unswerving, confident that any problems that would arise would be manageable. Upon arrival, the ship captain announced their docking over the air com and lowers the bridge. The captain and the commander were, however confused by the large gathering that was also arriving at the harbor, not having expected to be welcomed by anyone. However, instead of being greeted by people, the ship and its occupants are greeted by a horde of ghastly looking blood-thirsty freaks, attracted by the ship's horn, who proceed to rush up the bridge and attack everyone on board. The entire crew is killed or also turn into these ghoulish monsters. Vinnie ends up as the only survivor as he was wise enough to pack an M1911 pistol. He fights his way off the ship, reaches the harbor and finds a local named Rusty, whom he saves. Rusty tells him that the town was overrun a few days ago and that he thinks he knows where Frankie is. He invites Vinnie to talk at his pawnshop, where he points him to the Bonnino nightclub near the town center, where he suspects Frankie is being kept hostage by Mr. Belluccio's rival family.

Vinnie heads for the club and is attacked by the Bonninos' goons. He has a brief meeting with the gang's boss, Sonny, who runs off to the back of the club to interrogate Frankie, who had indeed been abducted by the Bonninos. After dispatching the entire family, he frees Frankie, who tells him that Mr. Belluccio needs him because he is the only one who can pilot Mr. Belluccio's blimp, which is the only way to escape the city unscathed. The duo makes their way to Mr. Belluccio's tower and fight through a U.S army stronghold built by the town's bridge. As Vinnie lowers the bridge from the top, Frankie lights the dynamite-rigged overpass and reveals that he has his own intentions with the blimp, telling him that his services are no longer required, as he leaves Vinnie to his fate. Vinnie falls into the water, but miraculously survives the drop. With his path back obstructed and a change of plan, he has to find his way back through a sewer, where he has to fight off giant mutated rats.

Underground, Vinnie stumbles across a group of guardsmen attempting to destroy a large metal door with explosives. He kills the hostile soldiers and opens the door to find a secret laboratory filled with barrels and vats of green liquid. Spotting a fleeing figure, he gives chase and finds that it's a German scientist, who had been employed by the government to secretly develop a poison, that could be used to end the bootlegging of alcohol. The scientist went overboard, however, and gave it some undesired "side-effects", namely zombification. He then reveals that Frankie was behind the outbreak, having promised the scientist money in exchange for more poison. He was then forced to produce even more and when St. Patrick's Day came, Frankie tainted the breweries with gallons of poison, which the citizens of Thugtown drank, causing the outbreak. Despite the man's pleas and insistence on not having known about Frankie's plans, Vinnie drowns the scientist by dropping him in a vat of his Zombie poison. He fights through more zombies, soldiers, giant rats and gangsters, being forced to climb up buildings as the town is gassed by the military, until he reaches the top of Mr. Belluccio's tower, where he finds Frankie stuffing the Belluccio Blimp full of Belluccio's fortune. Vinnie confronts Frankie, demanding to know where his boss was. When Frankie answers that Mr. Belluccio was "not going to be joining the flight", Vinnie finally cuts to the chase and asks why he had the entire town poisoned. Frankie states that it had created the "perfect diversion", allowing him to escape with millions without anyone noticing, as everyone would be preoccupied with closing down the city perimeters. The two have a long battle until Vinnie, as a hurt and distracted Frankie attempts to fly away, leaps into the blimp and, overpowers its occupant and throws the fiendish Frankie to his death. Left with nothing but millions of dollars and an escape vessel, he triumphantly flies off, hoping to never head back to Thugtown again...

Vinnie in his bunkVinnie with a Tommy gunVinnie meeting RustyVinnie murdering SonnyVinnie freeing Frankie. Note Sonny's dead body
## Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2

### History

In a lowly borough of Syndicate City, 16 years after the events of what is now known as the "Thugtown Incident", Vinnie finds himself tied up in a chair with his two kidnappers, Louie and Tony. Tony recounts to his partner how Vinnie miraculously survived the Thugtown Incident, also revealing that Vinnie was eventually caught, but avoided a lengthy prison sentence, as the authorities covered up the entire outbreak from the public, with Vinnie agreeing to a deal to feign ignorance during his testimony. No mention of the fate of Belluccio's Blimp nor the millions of dollars inside is made, but it's safe to presume that upon his capture, most of Vinnie's loot was confiscated by the government. Ostensibly, Vinnie then went right back to being a mobster in his hometown, and presumably worked for or with the local families. Vinnie breaks free of his restraints shortly after and kills the two gangsters. He makes his escape through several streets, warehouses and a cinema, fighting numerous other thugs and mobsters, before he finds a phone and contacts his friend Joe Barista who then tells him to meet him at the Pilot Bar at the Old Airfield. Vinnie is forced to rush through a street currently undergoing a police raid to reach the bar. After arriving at his destination, he meets up with Joe. Vinnie, still perplexed at the situation, asks why all gangsters in Syndicate City were suddenly after him, mentioning that he thought that the criminal gangs had come to a ceasefire agreement in their latest meeting. Joe tells him that every gangster in town, including his kidnappers, had recently been put under the payroll of a powerful new mob boss named "The Dark Don", who had put a hefty reward on Vinnie. Even more mysteriously, he was found to operate out of Thugtown, which has been devoid of any permanent population since the riots. Looking for answers, Vinnie decides to head back to Thugtown, now under quarantine by the US army.

After fighting his way through the ruins of Thugtown and the tunnels underneath, he comes across the Dark Don himself and his crew loading leftover barrels of Zombie poison into a submarine with a group of Nazi soldiers, lead by a German Commander. He fires multiple rounds at the group, fatally shooting a gangster through the throat in the process, to declare his presence and threateningly tells the group that taking the zombie poison is a bad idea. They rebuff his warning, laughing that he had walked right into their trap and order the soldiers to capture him. Cannoli then battles the U-Boat that the Dark Don and his Nazi allies were standing on, heavily damaging it and forcing them to flee. He returns to the Pilot Bar, telling Joe about what occurred who then suggests to Vinnie fly to Europe to take out the Dark Don. Vinnie is reluctant at first saying that going to a war zone just for revenge isn't worth the hassle, but after being pressured by Joe, he agrees. Barista and Vinnie fly over Normandy, France, where the Allies are landing at the beaches. Joe's B-17 is hit by a flak shell, forcing Vinnie to parachute out of the aircraft. He lands in an American landing craft before storming the beach.

After breaking through the German defenses and advancing inland, he finds Joe's plane crashed near a barn. He hopes to find Joe inside, but entering he instead finds Commander Wienerschnitzel waiting for him, who tells him Joe was being paid by the Reich to get him to Europe alive and that he was "enjoying his pension in the Bavarian Mountains.". Commander Wienerschnitzel again tries unsuccessfully to talk Vinnie into surrendering to him, before fighting him with a modified rear bomber sentry gun. Vinnie decimates the incoming Nazis and blows up the sentry gun, killing Wienerschnitzel. Vinnie continues to cut a bloody swath through the German lines, destroying a Wunderwaffen factory on his way, eventually reaching Joe's villa estate, hidden by the forest. He blows the front gate open, destroys his manor's statues and kills several of his mafioso guards, before he confronts Joe about his betrayal. Joe is visibly surprised at Vinnie's survival, but still attempts to justify his actions, unsympathetically claiming that the pay was too good to turn down, before he attacks in a Tiger tank. Vinnie destroys the tank and a mortally wounded Joe warns him to stay away from the Dark Don and to "get home while you still can." Vinnie asks what the Don wants from him and Joe answers that he wants Vinnie's blood as he is immune to the zombie poison, joking that it was the result of his Cannoli-centered eating habits. In response, Vinnie aims a flak cannon at his old friend, praises his comedic genius and asks "How about if I stuff YOUR face with a .88 shell, huh?" and turns the traitorous pilot into a red stain.

Vinnie finally arrives at the German secret mountain base where he then battles through Nazis, zombies, Nazi Zombies and giant rats, finally he arrives in a room with Dark Don behind a giant Haunebu-V UFO. Vinnie demands him to reveal himself and show his face, but he is shocked to find out it is actually Frankie who survived the Thugtown incident and being thrown off of the blimp. He relays his entire plan to achieve world domination to Vinnie and then prepares to mince Vinnie's body to get his blood, turning the platform Vinnie was standing on into a huge saw-laden meatgrinder. Frankie enters the UFO and the two battle, with Vinnie once again emerging victorious and leaping onto Frankie's nearly destroyed UFO, which is now little more than a floating pad. Defeated, Frankie tries to play it off as a joke, not impressing Vinnie, who ends up throwing him down once more, this time with the harvester pit ensuring his demise. Left with questioning his escape, Vinnie, by pure chance, finds the exit of the hangar and escapes back to America in one of the Haunebu-V UFOs.

Vinnie ends up crashing in a desert after an undetermined amount of time and looks up to see a city sign, showing he has landed in Roswell. He notes his unfamiliarity with the town's name, but then glares at the camera and remarks "Well, it's better than prison", remaining at large and unpunished.

## Trivia

* In both games, Vinnie always enters cutscenes from the left side. The sole exclusion is the cutscene before The Dark Don level.
* In *Guns, Gore and Cannoli 2*, Vinnie breaks the 4th wall, while killing mutant rats, partly referencing their Thugtown counterparts and the Mutant Rat boss, questioningly saying that he had already gone through a similar fight "in the first game".
* It is jokingly implied by Joe Barista that Vinnie gained immunity to the zombie poison thanks to his unusual diet of Cannoli pastries.
* Vinnie may mention an ex-wife in some of his quips. Whether he was actually married at some point is not known.
* Many of his quotes are in reference to various pieces of media. For example, his lines, "What we have here, is a failure to communicate!" or "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!" are from the movies Cool Hand Luke and Home Alone, respectively.
* Vinnie calls the Thugtown Outbreak a "Cannibal Holocaust" while confronting the German scientist, a reference to the infamous Italian exploitation film Cannibal Holocaust. It is still interesting to note that Vinnie makes use of the term "Holocaust" in the 1920s, since, while the term has existed prior to World War 2, it only became a widely known term thereafter.
* Vinnie, Sonny and Joe are the only characters to have their full names revealed.
* Vinnie's nature as an unrefined and aggressive but honest and upright mobster make him a man of questionable ethics, especially shown when he kills the German scientist, who was completely unaware of Frankie's plans and was willing to help and cooperate with Vinnie, as well as him occasionally audibly basking in taking the lives of zombies and humans alike. He does however have his own set of morals, seen when he condemns Frankie for murdering up to thousands of innocent civilians and working with the Nazis or when he tries to give Sonny the opportunity to flee in return for handing over Frankie. In the end though, what matters most to him is his own safety and money, making him a ruthless soldier of fortune with his own flexible, but ultimately righteous principles.
* Both he and Frankie seem to have barely aged in-between the 16 years separating the two games.
* In GG&C 2, one of Vinnie's quotes is "Give it up, you're messing with a vet here!". This may either indicate that Vinnie had at some point done service in the armed forces, possibly during WW1, which could explain his proficiency with military grade weapons, or that he's simply referring to himself as a veteran in the sense that he's had much fighting experience in general, stemming from his criminal career in the mob and the events of the Thugtown Incident. It is also likely a 4th wall breaking jab at the sequel being his second time battling zombies, gangsters and soldiers, as well as the player being a gaming veteran for presumably having finished the the first game.