Los Santos De La Mafia

I think I'm right in saying that this is another one of the films that is going to open on "HBO Max" in the States, rather than widely at the cinema. Here in the UK, we have had a cinematic release and as a fan of "The Sopranos" I jumped at the chance go. Though I wouldn't go as far as to say I was disappointed, I came away unsure as to the point of what I'd seen.

Richard Moltisanti (Allesandro Nivola) is a gangster, running numbers and trafficking stolen goods in Newark. Initially struggling to conceive a child of his own, he acts like a second father to the son of his friend Johnny Boy Soprano (Jon Bernthal). Young Tony (William Ludwig/Michael Gandolfini) has an unstable homelife and is beginning to act out at school. Dickie Moltisanti has other issues though, such as the rise of black gangs in the neighbourhood following the riots of 1967 and his attraction to his father's young new wife, Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi).

It's not that this is bad. By no means is it bad. The performances are excellent, the impressions of established characters are nicely done, the recreation of the 1960's and 1970's is really well done. It's that I felt like I was watching what should have been at least three seasons of television, with the fast forward button on. It's interesting to see that this is being sold as "The formative years of Tony Soprano" when really that's quite a small part of the overall film, barely even a third of it, I'd say. It's very much the Dickie Moltisanti story, narrated from beyond the grave, by his son. It's his relations that make up the bulk of the story and not just his relationship with Tony, but also with his father played by Ray Liotta, his new step mother, a low level runner called Harold McBrayer, played by Leslie Odom Jr and with the rest of the family - both actual and metaphorical.

There are quite a few different plot points to the film, but all are shallowly dealt with as they only have two hours to play out, rather than thirty. It's like watching a wrap up film for a cancelled TV show where the writers say, "this is where we would have gone". None of the betrayals or murders play that heavy as we don't spend enough time with the characters to get more than a basic feel about who they are.

Again, I don't want to bang on as if what's here isn't good. It is, and I really hope if finally allows Allesandro Nivola to get some meatier roles again, and, on the smaller screen, it might seem more fitting than it does at the Cinema. But I came away wishing I could have the rest of this, rather than just the tiny taster menu that was on offer.

It is the late 1960s and Dick Moltisanti is a leading figure in the Newark Mafia. His son, Dickie, takes after him and is rising up through the ranks. Dickie is a father figure to a boy who will ultimately run his own crime family, Tony Soprano.

Set about 30 years before the events of the TV series The Sopranos, this is a prequel to that. I regard The Sopranos as the greatest drama series of all time so my interest was piqued, especially as the tagline labelled it "Who made Tony Soprano". I didn't feel that The Sopranos needed a prequel, but was intrigued nevertheless.

It looks good on paper: written by David Chase, creator and head writer of The Sopranos, directed by Alan Taylor, who directed several episodes of The Sopranos. So you know this has right pedigree and isn't some independent production trying to make use of The Sopranos brand. Throw in a decent cast: Ray Liotta, Alessandro Nivola, Leslie Odom Jr, Vera Farmiga, John Bernthal and even Michael Gandolfini, the son of James Gandolfini who played Tony Soprano in the series, as the teenaged Tony Soprano.

The film started well enough: the set up was interesting and the characters reasonably engaging. Plot development is initially intriguing but then the cracks begin to show. From a point I kept thinking "there's only one way this is going to end". This was mainly based on the characters appearing in The Sopranos but I think even without that knowledge the signs were there how this was going to turn out.

Another, though more minor, issue is that David Chase seemed overly keen to jam as many characters from the TV series into the movie, just to create that spark of recognition among fans of the TV series.

The ending is predictable (as mentioned above) and very flat. Even if you didn't figure out in advance how things would work out, the conclusion is very anti-climactic and empty. Moreover, the explanation of and link to Tony Soprano's later life and activities is not there, making it quite disappointing.

Considering this, someone who's never watched The Sopranos might find this film more interesting as they won't have an expectation of some profound explanation of Tony Soprano's later career or events in the series and won't be distracted by the insertion of characters from the series just for recognition value. However, even for the uninitiated, at best this is just okay due to the flat ending.

Really? All that talent and money, and yet overall this is a meandering narrative mess that doesn't know what story it wants to tell. It is more or less a hodgepodge of cameos by younger versions of the TV series characters superimposed over a laughably shallow and revisionist narrative on the riots that destroyed Newark NJ.

The closest analogy I can give is the shockingly bad "Deadwood: The Movie" which was an insult to everyone who enjoyed the Deadwood series. It makes me profoundly grateful that no "movie" was made following "Rome" or Boardwalk Empire."

Remember when "The Sopranos" took the television show to new narrative heights? Remember when each new episode was more anxiously awaited than any new movie? Remember when you wished more movies could be told as TV series or miniseries on HBO or Showtime, so that they could go into more detail, and take their time developing?

It is ironic that the show that surpassed film would then go back to that form, and all the more ironic that the resultant film doesn't hold a candle to the TV show. We hung on every moment of "Sopranos". People watch and re-watch scenes noticing tell-tale placement of actors in similar positions to where the actors were in prior scenes. They go over dialogue, building profiles of characters who never even appear on the show, but we get to know them better than most on-screen characters in other shows.

The legendary Dickie Moltisanti was oft mentioned on the show, and here we finally get to see him, played by one of the few Italian-American actors who isn't famous for mob roles, Alessandro Nivola. For such a revered figure, he turns out to be a dead end, not emerging with any discernible personality. That should be okay though, because of course this movie shows us younger versions of characters we all know and oddly love, such as Silvio Dante, Paulie Walnuts, Uncle Junior. Except - wait a minute. None of them say or do anything interesting here. The guy who plays Silvio particularly just seems to be trying as hard as he can to ape Steve Van Zandt. You can never take him seriously as the character. And how is Billy Magnussen's Paulie Walnuts so boring? He stole every scene on "The Sopranos". Here he does nothing.

"The Sopranos". So many great lines. So many great scenes. You can watch YouTubes of them for hours without getting bored. "The Many Saints of Newark" barely captured my interest at all. David Chase has gone on record saying that he had his doubts about whether a film based on his classic television series would have worked. He should have trusted this instinct.

They made a movie about Dickie Moltisanti. Most Soprano fans couldn't give a damn about Dickie. He's a background character.

Fans wanted a show about Tony Soprano. The movie made Tony a background character. We learned more about Tony's childhood from the original show than we do during this movie.

With the exception of one scene, we don't even know anything about Tony's relationship with his father.

It's puzzling. The original show was all about the complexity of family dynamics. This movie was a B-rate gangster flick sidetracked by a plot about a black gangster during a time in the 60's when there would have been minimal interaction between street gangs & mob bosses.

The fans wanted a Tony Soprano coming of age Story. Instead the producers delivered a 2 hour film with 14 minutes of Tony Soprano flashbacks.