It’s too bad for “Witness to the Mob” now. The two-disc made-for-TV movie stars nearly the entire cast of the HBO show that, starting the year after “Witness’s” release, would make it utterly irrelevant and old school.

“The Sopranos” knocked down the old set pieces of New York Italian gangster movies and built something new, unexpected, towering and modern in its place. Not a single step of the series was done on auto-pilot. And while creative debts to classic mafia fare like the Godfather series (even the third one) are obvious, “The Sopranos” wouldn’t have been the same without “Witness’s” real life subject, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.

Gravano was John Gotti’s No. 2 until Gravano turned rat for the FBI. The movie starts out with Gravano talking about that decision in hindsight, while serving a prison sentence. Most of the movie is told in flashback, in flashbacks from the days of orange correctional jumpsuits to the days of orange leather jackets, and the story ends soon after Gravano comes out of the Witness Protection Program to make a lot of swaggering interviews on afternoon television. Probably because it would take more explanation than would be possible, Gravano (played by Nicholas Turturro) doesn’t sport the plastic surgery he’d gotten while hiding.

Turturro (brother of John, or “The Jesus,” to the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers out there) is a Gravano who seems to be heavily weighed by the mafia chess game in which he lives (as opposed to how the “Celebrity Fit Club” contestant is burdened in real life). Between “The Sopranos” and “Goodfellas,” you have almost the entire, ridiculously talented cast of “Witness” — Frankie Valli, Vincent Pastore, Michael Imperioli, Frank Vincent, Lenny Vinito, Johnny Williams, Debi Mazar and Kathrine Narducci star. Everyone else in the movie looks straight out of central Jersey casting, including the still-not-dead Abe Vigoda and Philip Baker Hall (who will forever be disintegrating game show host Jimmy Gator, from “Magnolia,” to me).

But “Witness to the Mob” wasn’t made to push the envelope. The language had to be suitable for NBC, violence is almost entirely limited to shots of blood spattering onto jukeboxes, drugs are only occasionally mentioned (and then only as commodity) and when Gravano’s wife accuses him of having an affair, we snort just like Turturro does, because this Gravano’s a good boy. This is more of a Cliff’s Notes to the life of Gravano (who, in real life, is back in jail) than a classic in its own right. It’s the “Sense and Sensibility” of mob movies.

It’ll always be easier for Gen X-ers to blow the dust out of their cartridge of the original, eight-bit “Super Mario Bros.” and enjoy it. It may take a “Grand Theft Auto” to reach it these days, but “Super Mario Bros.” set the high water mark back in 1985. We remember it back when it was the best thing going. But if you knew nothing but Wii as a kid, “Super Mario Bros.” is going to make you grind your teeth out of your head. That makes it all the more impressive that “Witness to the Mob” can not only hold an audience’s attention, it doesn’t seem like last month’s capicola. Especially with all those hair helmets and matchy jogging suits. However most of the set pieces on “Witness” are played out, Turturro is engrossing. Fresh. A big pair of shoulders for Tony Soprano to stand on. And I bet James Gandolfini took notes.

Ashley O’Dell reviews movies that aren’t in theaters — or on TV — anymore.