The Many Saints Of Newark whacks all the humor, dimension, and weirdness out of The Sopranos
David Chase's slick prequel to his hit HBO series is a massive letdown
Film Reviews The Sopranos
“Who made Tony Soprano?” screams the poster for The Many Saints Of Newark, David Chase’s slick flashback to the fabled, formative salad days of his most famous character. Dr. Melfi had theories on the matter; they came up often during her heated sessions with the don. Janice, older sister of New Jersey’s most stressed-out mob boss, posed the question differently: “What’s wrong with our family?” she asked Tony in “The Knight In White Satin Armor,” one of the great episodes of the great HBO series that bore their name. With Saints, the creator finally attempts something of an answer. Unfortunately, what he comes up with in this over-plotted Sopranos prequel is much less interesting than what he planted in our heads over six seasons.
Those jonesing for a Corleonesque rise to power will be disappointed to learn that Tony plays a rather minor role in The Many Saints Of Newark. In fact, for a solid hour, he’s basically Jake Lloyd-sized: a boy (William Ludwig) watching from the sidelines of a criminal empire in late 1960s Jersey. In so much as this rather decentered epic has a central figure, it’s Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), Tony’s mobster uncle and father of perennial Sopranos fuck-up Christopher. The movie brings us into its past-tense world—the legendary yesterday only alluded to on the show—through what proves to be both its first and its most eccentric choice: Michael Imperioli reprises the role of Christopher to narrate the story from beyond the grave.
Like the adult Tony, Dickie has personal and professional concerns, problems with the family and The Family. For a while, the former involve his own father, played by Ray Liotta, adding another Goodfellas luminary to the Sopranos ensemble. (Liotta, in an impressive dual role, also steps in to play Dickie’s incarcerated uncle, the closest the film ends up having to a voice of moral reason.) The loutish Dickie senior has recently brought home from Italy a young beauty, Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi), who Dickie junior can’t keep his eyes off of. While that conflict simmers, the first sparks of a gang war are lit by Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), one-time muscle of Dickie’s, who decides maybe the Italians shouldn’t have full control of the city. Harold is radicalized by the Newark riots of 1967—one of the more interesting subplots, along with the exploration of Black organized crime during the era, muscled to the margins of this arrhythmic, diffusive mess of narrative.
Chase, who co-wrote the script with an alum of his writers’ room, Lawrence Konner, flattens the world of The Sopranos into a generic, vaguely Scorsesian crime epic. At times, the film suggests the shapelessness of a biopic, as though it were beholden to some historical record of facts and figures. Not helping matters is the presence of Alan Taylor, another Sopranos veteran, in the director’s chair. Taylor, who’s alternated high-profile HBO gigs with the big-budget franchise maintenance of Thor: The Dark World and Terminator Genisys, gives the film’s period setting a handsome museum sheen, while staging the shoot-outs and tense encounters with anonymous proficiency. He also smothers just about every scene in jukebox wallpaper; you couldn’t exactly call this a soundtrack of needle drops, as the needle never seems to leave the vinyl. One might complain that Taylor’s direction smooths out the idiosyncrasies of this fictional universe, but that counterproductive work begins on the page, with the curiously workmanlike screenplay.
Where’s the prickly psychology, the gaspingly funny midnight-black humor, the dimension Chase brought to every corner of a corrosively amoral criminal empire? Two decades ago, The Sopranos proved you could create something truly novelistic on the small screen, helping usher in a supposed golden age of TV by using the freedoms of the format to tell sprawling stories—and develop characters—in a manner not possible on the big screen. It was among the first shows to have armchair pundits wondering if premium cable was the new home of the serious, adult American drama Hollywood had abandoned. The irony of The Many Saints Of Newark is that it seems to make that case all over again: While The Sopranos demonstrated that the tropes of gangster cinema could be reinvigorated through serialized storytelling, filtering them back into a two-hour format leaves only… the tropes.
It might be easier to accept the film on its own terms if its entire emotional appeal, and its dramatic arc, weren’t predicated on a familiarity with the series. The Many Saints Of Newark has a bad case of prequelitis, filling in backstory perhaps better left implied. The cast of characters is a Muppet Babies parade of Sopranos regulars, some more elegantly de-aged than others: While Corey Stoll offers a nicely organic read on the fledgling testiness and insecurity of Uncle Junior, the normally reliable John Magaro—who made his breakthrough in Chase’s first feature, the similarly years-spanning Not Fade Away—does a sketch-comedy caricature of a young Silvio, broadly approximating Steven Van Zandt’s Al-Pacino-by-way-of-Bela-Lugosi mannerisms. And then there’s Vera Farmiga as Tony’s mother, Livia. In an amusingly Oedipal touch, she looks and sounds just like Edie Falco. Yet Saints borders on revisionist in the way it fails to match any understanding of the domineering shadow she supposedly cast over Tony’s childhood. The Sopranos spent multiple years suggesting a Freudian foundation of family dysfunction. You look at Farmiga’s Livia and see little of the conniving manipulation of Nancy Marchand’s iconic villain.
What the film critically lacks is a black hole of caustic, complex personality to match the one the late James Gandolfini lent The Sopranos. Dickie, this looming figure in Tony’s life, is a paper napkin sketch, defined almost solely by a cycle of explosive anger and the clumsy, guilt-stricken attempts at atonement that follow. Early into the movie, Dickie commits an act of shocking violence in a car—a scene that echoes outward in disturbingly telling ways to a later, significant choice Tony makes in The Sopranos. What we’re meant to see here, perhaps, is the template for a pathology: the raw materials of the man Tony will become, inherited from a relative passing his own flaws—the violence in his heart—down through the generations. Yet Nivola can’t find a character in that abstract notion; he somehow seems less specific than whatever image a fan might have conjured through the anecdotes of the series.
Eventually, Saints spills into the late ’70s, and the role of fresh-faced Tony passes to Gandolfini’s real-life son, Michael. He’s the spitting image of his father—you can see, physically, how he could grow into one of television’s (and 21st-century fiction’s) most memorable antiheroes. Yet there are few traces of the adult Tony in this rather blank-slate teenager: He’s just a feckless kid destined for notoriety. Overburdened with supporting characters and side stories, Chase neglects to properly dramatize the mentor-disciple bond that supposedly sets the boy on his course; you look at his scant scenes with Dickie, and think, this is it? This is the relationship that made Tony Soprano? The Many Saints Of Newark ends at the exact moment that it’s getting interesting; by its inconclusive conclusion, you realize that Chase and his HBO financiers are reaching for a new form of serialization, teasing a transformation that only an inevitable sequel can provide. Let’s just say that as abrupt non-endings go, it has nothing on the hard cut to black that once closed this franchise.
275 Comments
We can’t all be El Camino. We can however all be Entourage, Deadwood, X-Files, Veronica Mars, and Sex and the City.
The first X-Files movie is awesome.
I’m not here to countenance reasonable opinions, just to make smart remarks.
That came out while the show was still in full swing!
Absolutely. I wasn’t even a fan of the show and went to see the movie because someone told me it worked as a standalone film – then I went and watched every episode. Perhaps cap_n_jack meant the second X-Files film, because that shit was cringeworthy and almost impossible to watch.
I know what you’re doing here, but I’m just gonna say that the second X-Files movie is a meditation on all that the series did.
It was certainly better than the second, but what did it really give us? It focused on the “alien mythology” arc, the least interesting part of the series because it was obvious we were never going to get straight answers to any of it and that the writers were just making it up as they went along. The good parts of the X-Files were the standalone “monster of the week” episodes. The movies should have worked with those. Maybe Flukeman teamed up with Eugene Tooms?
we can’t all be beavis & butthead do america
I was mainly sticking to live action, but that one is a gem. Here’s hoping the sequel isn’t awful.
the followup series that judge did a decade ago was good, so that bodes well.
The movie that taught me to never end a sentence with a preposition.
The movie that taught me to never end a sentence with a preposition.With Honors did that for me. Also taught me the absolute absurdity of the “slow clap building to a crescendo” scene.
Don’t forget Beavis and Butthead:
That guy off in whose camper they were whacking?
We not all can be Muppet Movie!
Deadwood was far worse than what it should have been AND far better than it had any right to be.Part of that, though, is the story behind it. Fuck “Death of the Author,” Deadwood: The Movie works very well on a meta level precisely *because* David Milch was trying to finish it before Alzheimer’s took full hold of him.
That’s sad. But agreed, a great show.
The impression I got was that he didn’t, though. Someone else wrote it with his approval and some notes. Milch just wasn’t in a place to do it, but he needed the money. I’m glad it exists but it’s largely a retread of the finale with a happier ending.
I don’t know what people were expecting after 15 years, but I thoroughly enjoyed it – though I admit it’s fair to wonder how much of that was on merit and how much was just being happy we got anything at all after so long. Regardless, the final line is absolutely perfect, even without the context of Milch’s diagnosis (which as you’ve pointed out probably also factors into my feelings toward the movie).
I also liked El Camino though, which didn’t have either of those factors at play. In both cases I consider the films to be solid, entertaining codas to the series. They’re not at the level of what came before but at minimum it was nice to spend a couple more hours in those worlds with those characters.
They’re not at the level of what came before but at minimum it was nice to spend a couple more hours in those worlds with those characters. That’s basically it.“You ever think, Bullock, of not going straight at a thing?”
We also can’t all be Mask of the Phantasm or MST3K: The Movie!
I hope by mentioning MST3K: The Movie you’re not saying ill of it. I managed to see it in the theatre and somehow got a VHS copy from Blockbuster for a dollar. I wore it out by 2003.
I just hope Seven Feet Under is good.
The sad thing is that sounds realistic enough that I considered googling to see if it was a thing.
I did, too, and I made the dumb joke.
Don’t get your hopes up. I mean, Six Feet Under wasn’t even that good.
It’s the prequel, Five Feet Under
That one was so boring, though. Just the Fishers sitting around the breakfast table, chatting.Seven Feet Under will hopefully be a 90-minute static shot of five gravestones.
I thought Deadwood was better then El Camino. Camino was very good but it wasn’t needed. Deadwood was absolutely needed.
I’m a huge Breaking Bad and Better Caul Saul fan, and El Camino was decidedly alright, maybe even good, but nowhere near the level of either TV series.
Thankfully, I’ve only had the misfortune of seeing one of the other movies-from-a-TV series on your list (and undoubtedly the worst one of the bunch).
“I’m a huge Breaking Bad and Better Caul Saul fan”caul /kôl/ anatomy
noun: caul; plural noun: cauls
1. the amniotic membrane enclosing a fetus.Saul Goodman opens an abortion clinic. I would watch the fuck out of that!
Hahaha, I didn’t even notice the misspelling. Good catch, and that would be an interesting career change.
Hell, have him open it in Texas and then argue against the law in court.
My biggest problem about El Camino was that it didn’t tell us anything about Jesse as a person that we didn’t already know. And maybe there was nothing new to tell after 6 seasons, but then there was no point in making the movie aside from placating fans who wanted to go on one last ride.
El Camino reminded me of the computer game expansion packs you could buy back in the day for games like Half-Life: more of the same good stuff you liked from the original product, but too far removed from touching the heart of the source material to really be compelling beyond the telling, to coin a phrase.
Hey now the Veronica Mars movie was exactly what us marshmallows needed.
They tried to be Frazier, but what they got was Joey.
Are you implying that El Camino is a better movie spawned from a TV show than the Deadwood movie? Because that is ridiculous.
We cant all be The Phantom Menace either.
Well, this is pretty much the only negative review I have read. Has over 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m sure it will be fine.
El Camino wasn’t that good
That is about as good as it looked to me.
Yeah at least if it’s not a great story, I’ll enjoy the novelty of characters casually referring to Sopranos luminaries: e.g. “Oh! Feech! I’ll see you at the game tonight!” or “Ralphie, stop trying to light that dog’s tail on fire!”
Shame about it.
I see what ya did there 😉
sounds like there will probably be enough reasonably stylized violence for me to jerk off to.
Has anyone considered that directing films might not be Alan Taylor’s forte?
Well yeah, anyone who saw Terminator Genysis.
He made Thor: The Dark World. So, yeah, it’s been considered.
yeah as soon as i saw his name attached i had a bad feeling about this movie.
If people were expecting something better they surely didn’t watch Chase’s stupid rock and roll movie.
In retrospect, releasing it as “David Chase’s Stupid Rock and Roll Movie” was probably a mistake.
I thought it was called “Old White Man Lectures the Youth about HIS Music … Again”
Now that how you do prequel!
what? what was THAT??
I can’t help but wonder if any form of Sopranos prequel would be able to work. A huge part of what made The Sopranos work so well was its milieu—the pitch-perfect representation of America in the late 90s/early 00s, the autumnal unease of it all. It worked because it mirrored the state of the Mafia, and threw its decline into sharper relief. If you’re going to set it in the 60s and 70s, you just end up with diet Scorsese.
Diet Scorsese Cola is still better than Pepsi Clear.
Hasn’t been the same since they stopped putting cocaine in it.
Where does Caffeine-Free Diet Scorsese rank?
Diet Scorcese Cola never gave us this cinematic masterpiece.
Diet De Palma Pepper is easily the best.
+ 1 for clever
The problem with Scorcese films in my opinion as a NYer who grew up with mob figures and friends of the mob in the 70s is that the movies always took itself too seriously. It was like Scorcese was being very careful not to insult the mob at a time when even Hollywood was under their thumb. The Sopranos lets down that guard and shows us these are all just a bunch of dangerous but fallible mooks. They make mistakes, which the mob usually did. The Sopranos isn’t romanticized and glorified as much as its story is practical which makes it even more funny and entertaining.
It was like Scorcese was being very careful not to insult the mob at a time when even Hollywood was under their thumb
On the contrary, he didn’t make Goodfellas until after the Mafia had already been taken down. Although the fact that he waited that long (by which time Coppola was on his third Godfather movie) might indicate a certain wariness of ticking them off beforehand. On the other hand, Goodfellas is a lot less flattering of a portrait than the Godfather.
“On the contrary, he didn’t make Goodfellas until after the Mafia had already been taken down”LMFAO! I had to laugh at “taken down”. Downsized, is more like it. But yeah you could see him vacillate in his depiction of the organism that was organized crime but, like you said it goes in sync with the times and events shaping the narrative.
Someone once said that the big difference between GoodFellas and The Godfather is that the Godfather films (particularly the first one) have no innocent victims. You get absolutely no sense of the mundane extortion (i.e. “I won’t hurt you as long as you give me money”) that is the Mafia’s lifeblood. There’s a hint of it in GFII when Vito loses his job with the Abbandando grocery because Fanucci moves his nephew in, but that’s it. On the contrary, GoodFellas and The Sopranos are full of those kinds of scenes (i.e. when Pesci beats the crap out of a restaurant owner for daring to ask him to pay up his massively past-due tab).One of the funniest scenes in The Sopranos is in the final season when Pat Parisi and (I think) Burt Gervasi go into a newly-opened Starbucks and try to extort the manager. The manager turns them down, pointing out that Corporate keeps track of every dime, so there’s literally no under-the-table cash to pay the mob off with. Pat and Burt skulk out of the store, muttering how the corporations have ruined the old neighborhood.
Didn’t the mafia visit Scorsese on set, and threaten him if he called them “Cosa Nostra”? He may have had good reason not to make fun of them.
The best latter-day mafia films fully acknowledge that most members are psychopathic dimwits with impulse control problems. Jimmy Conway was violent and paranoid to the point where he killed pretty much everyone around him, and Henry essentially became the guy he previously mocked for being the type to fall asleep in the getaway car. Lefty from Donnie Brasco had to smash open parking meters for change to pay his tribute. Whatever “family” the Godfather convinced us existed was long gone by the time Gotti’s guys started turning on each other.
sounds suspiciously like those “ I was at Woodstock too” dudes. I wa5s from a poor family, going to school , paying my tuition expenses from a part time job. i fenced various things i could get from my connections to the store i worked in. laterb on worked for a bookie who lived in Tony’s house, but in Queens. i knew why Scorsese was serious because i was too, and for the same reasons : if you want something, you don’t fuck them,you may not wind up in jersey cornfield, but you aint getting squat.
Plus, no one was safe. You never knew who would die. In a prequel, you know exactly who isn’t going to die.
Knowing who is and isn’t going to die really should have nothing to do with how good a movie is.If it did no one would ever make historical drama.
You say that now, but you’re actually wrong. spoilerspoilerspoilerMid-way through the movie the russian appears through a time portal to hunt down Paulie and baby Christopher Terminator style.
You say that now, but you’re actually wrong.First time for everything.
He’s an interior decorator.
I shall decorate the interior… in your blood!
Put remote on docking station if you want to live.
His TARDIS looked like shit.
Then he yells “I’m off to Holstens in 2007!”
hey if QT could kill Hitler, Chase can off Uncle Junior
Yeah, I think the one thing it had going for it was unraveling mysteries like who had Dickie killed, which it delivered on but at the same time didn’t. We still don’t get the best idea as to who *spoiler* got to pull the trigger, or if Tony knows any of that himself. But it still was a good twist seeing some of what really happened.
I was cautiously optimistic; while the show is very rooted in its time, it also has a lot of focus on America’s post-Camelot decline, and every story/character is stuck hanging onto the “Good old days,” or trying to live up to the legacy of their forebears. It could’ve worked, but I’m not surprised it hasn’t.
Agreed. No one wants to see guys live it up in a time when the mob literally owned NYC and had billions in assets. We like the idea of fallout and post apocalyptic loss – the ability to survive against odds. It’s why West World and Walking Dead was so popular. It’s bad enough the Sopranos live in a counter culture to American merit, but there also isn’t any risk except getting whacked and then we’re back to the Scorsese formula again.
“If you’re going to set it in the 60s and 70s, you just end up with diet Scorsese.”You just summed up Todd Phillip’s Joker.
I’d be interested in a sequel about AJ. Not as a mobster, but someone in therapy after seeing his father whacked in front of him. Maybe he could end up with the same therapist his father used.
Posting the same unfounded conjecture multiple times won’t make it make sense. The Sopranos ended with the audience’s getting whacked. It happened as suddenly as had our dropping in, mid-action, in s1e1. We knew the finale episode was the end of the line, and we literally heard it coming. What we didn’t understand was: the diner bells tolled for us. Whatever happened to the characters after we got clipped is irrelevant.
I’d be interested in a sequel about AJ. Not as a mobster, but someone in therapy after seeing his father whacked in front of him. Maybe he could end up with the same therapist his father used.
As someone who liked the Godfather, Goodfellas and even Mobsters (with Christian Slater and Richard Grieco) I always thought it was weird that I couldn’t get into the Sopranos.Now I’m wondering if it was partly because the ones I liked were mostly period pieces and the Sopranos were set in modern times.
Chase said they considered several approaches and decided on just making a good gangster film, which I wonder about, cause I don’t see the series as a gangster show like a Scorsese’s gangster film. Different kinda movie. The series is rich in any of its dimensions: gangster excess and violence, psychology lesson, or commentary on post-911 America. The psychological exploration is fascinating cause it explains why we’re so screwed up. There’s plenty of rich history to invent and explore in the 60s/70s to explain why Tony and America evolved how they did.
I’m sorry but have you seen Goodfellas and Casino? Those are straight up satires of those real life mooks.
The original TV series went on for way too long, and was too danged self-referential and stuff. You can’t have characters acting in a TV series knowing their a pop culture phenomenon. The sole exception being The Monkees, of course.
I’m curious what you mean?
I’ve always thought The Sopranos as a series was overrated, though its impact on shows that followed was immense. Its peers (The Wire, The Shield) were better. I even thought Oz was overall a better series, though that is probably highly controversial.Then again, I freaking LOVED the ending of The Sopranos. Given how much people hated it, perhaps I’m not the best gauge of how good a series actually is.
This guy… edgy af!!
‘Edgy’ maybe 10 years ago….That’s me, about 10 years behind the cutting edge.
I watched the Sopranos regularly while it was on, but missed the last episode because I moved out of state that weekend. And I never had a chance to watch it, just got caught up with a new job, forgot, heard it was bad, no one wanted to watch it with me, etc. Finally saw it last month and.. I liked it! I appreciated the ambiguity of the ending, and don’t think I would’ve ever questioned its pseudo-brilliance had pop culture not decided it sucked when it aired.
Its kinda hard to experience for the first time now, since it has become a commonplace thing to use in the series finale (let the audience decide what happened).
The Sopranos was entertaining, but I wouldn’t call it brilliant. Speaking of shows with Sopranos stars, I wonder how Lilyhammer ended. I watched the first season , as I liked the fish-out-of-water premise, but time passed and I haven’t gotten around to finishing the series.
If the Sopranos isn’t brilliant, what is?
wow you waited a bit for that closure, huh
I still don’t understand what it means
People have come around on the ending.And while I could see The Wire being better than The Sopranos, I absolutely disagree about The Shield and Oz. The Wire is The Sopranos’ only equal when it comes to its scope and atmosphere.
Wait…you don’t think The Shield has the same level of scope and atmosphere as The Sopranos?Wow.I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that particular criticism of The Shield.Actually, I can’t think of a single area that The Sopranos did anything better than The Shield, except maybe in popular culture influence, in which Tony definitely has a big edge over Vic Mackey.But hey, I admit I don’t entirely ‘get’ all the praise heaped on The Sopranos—-when I watched it, it was well after the series had already run, so like Citizen Kane, I’d never get to appreciate the things they did ‘first’; the innovative nature. All I can take it in as is——what it is.And likewise, I watched Oz and The Wire after they had already run (although The Wire was literally right after Season 5 ended), so anything innovative they did was lost on me—I just judged them as they were as a series.It was a fine series, but the huge Sopranos fan thinks its the greatest TV series ever, and I will never even come close to that level of appreciation.
I like The Shield, but a) its plotting was borderline incoherent for the last couple of seasons (I need a flowchart to keep track of the blackmail box stuff); b) it from time to time forgot (and had to remind itself) that Vic Mackie was actually a bad guy (I always got the sense that the showrunners regretted him having kill a cop on the 1st episode and subsequently transferred some of his worse attributes to Shane); c) it bought into the vaccine/autism connection. I think all of that keep it a few notches below The Sopranos, although there’s an argument to be made that it’s The Sopranos for basic cable.
I’d agree with you that Season 6 was weak compared to the rest (I’ve said in the past its my least favorite season), but they got it back to together for that wild ride in Season 7.
It’s never easy to appreciate trailblazers when you’re consuming their work after seeing what other people did with the playbook already in hand. Before The Sopranos, nearly every hourlong drama was a procedural that followed a set episodic formula — down to the same dramatic beat before every commercial break — designed to be watched out of sequence in syndication, with stock characters that could be easily digested by an indifferent occasional audience. After The Sopranos, television was a medium that thrived on intense serialization, season- and series-long arcs, and deeper characterization than was possible in two-hour movies.If you’re watching the series for the first time after seeing most later prestige shows, it’s easy to spot the flaws, just like Kane’s old age makeup isn’t all that great when viewed in 4K. However, as with Citizen Kane, the fact that later artists improved upon its innovations does not diminish the original work. Like, The Sopranos invented the idea that you could expect an audience to watch every episode of a TV series in order. That idea on its own was revolutionary.
I agree with what you said…there is no contest between The Shield, Oz, The Wire and the Sopranos in which one has been the most influential on TV. Actually only The Wire comes anywheres near The Sopranos influence on pop culture, and even that is a way off.But as I said, I can only look at things based on their merit at the time I first watch them.
The Shield is fantastic and by my count has one of the only two perfect endings in television history, the other belonging to Review. (I loved The Sopranos’ ending but it doesn’t quite hit the same level for reasons I can’t quite articulate.)
By my very unscientific, anecdotal observation, I have noticed the folks I know who liked Tony the most — the people who thought he was a hero — “didn’t get”/disliked the ending the most, and in fact refuse to believe it was a death scene. I actually liked the ending, and definitely believe it was a death scene (like, I legit can’t believe anyone can seriously argue it wasn’t a death scene, if not literally then at least metaphorically). BTW I’m in the same boat as you (almost… Wire = superior; Oz = as good; The Shield = not quite; Sopranos was very very good but not as amazing as everyone says it was, but it did help usher in/cement the concept of prestige television and what television narrative could do)
I mean, for me, there wasn’t a single season in The Sopranos as good as S4 of The Wire or S5 of The Shield. Or even S5 of Breaking Bad for that matter. It never hit those heights for me. The cast, to me, was better across the board in The Shield than The Sopranos. I was never all that impressed by Gandy’s acting chops (he’s perfectly fine as Tony, but people drool over him as the greatest acting job ever, and I just don’t see it), and certain filler character actors like Stevie Van Zandt were PAINFULLY bad. That casting decision in particular might be one of the worst I’ve ever seen.Meanwhile, nobody in The Sopranos came close to Walton Goggins’ Shane or even Chiklis’ Mackey—-did you watch the scene where Vic confesses all his crimes to the FBI agent for immunity? Or Shane and Lem’s final scene together? (trying to cut down on the spoilers) Just amazing.And Forest’s Kavanaugh may be the best ‘big bad’ character any series has ever had, especially since he’s technically the good guy. What an amazing turn.Its been a really long time since I watched Oz, but if I remember correctly, either S1 or S2 was its peak.
Honestly feels like splitting hairs for me — I think all these shows are top tier programs. I definitely agree re: Breaking Bad since we’re throwing that in the mix. Funny you mention Walton Goggins, since when I think of prestige television, I personally think of another show that often doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as these shows, Justified, which I also feel was better and certainly more fun that Sopranos. I’m biased on Gandolfini in that he reminds me of a lot of the people in my hometown, and I’ve also heard numerous stories about him IRL being a solid mensch. My favorite was from someone who got trapped in the middle of the street in/near Little Italy during a snow storm with their wheels spinning and going nowhere. All of a sudden the car started rocking back and forth and the driver looks out and it’s Gandolfini rocking the vehicle back and forth trying to get it unstuck. This apparently drew somewhat of a crowd, which Gandolfini then rallied to successfully help free the car and push it down the street.I would be comfortable saying in my esteem it’s Gandolfini, The Person> Gandolfini, The Actor>Tony Soprano, The Character>Sopranos. And yea, Goggins probably is a better actor. I’ve seen most of The Shield and I know how it ends, so no worries on spoilers, but I appreciate it since I fucking hate spoilers.
Oh, I know…Gandolfini was a really good guy from everything you hear.Stevie Van Zandt is, too, but he’s absolutely horrific actor.Look at the late Paul Walker—-supposedly was as good a guy as there is in Hollywood, but was never much of an actor.I’m starting to think that with few exceptions, you have to be a moody prick to be a truly great actor. Walton Goggins being one of those exceptions.
OO sorry friend, this is where we diverge. Paul Walker’s track record with underage girls (shivers) I can’t get on board. I know he was beloved and all that but I Have Questions.
I wasn’t aware of that scandal….I guess I have to update my opinion of him then.
https://jalopnik.com/when-are-we-going-to-address-how-paul-walker-had-relati-1828227580
Jesus, Goggins in that scene with Lem in “Postpartum” is…just…yeah. And when Mackey and Kavanaugh rush each other like fucking titans…Jesus, that show. True OWNAGE, as they used to say around here.
it would only be a death scene if the episode was from tony’s POV. It wasnt. So when it went black the episode just stopped. Its like someone just shut the tv off.
By my very unscientific, anecdotal observation, I have noticed the folks I know who liked Tony the most — the people who thought he was a hero — “didn’t get”/disliked the ending the most, and in fact refuse to believe it was a death scene. I actually liked the ending, and definitely believe it was a death scene (like, I legit can’t believe anyone can seriously argue it wasn’t a death scene, if not literally then at least metaphorically). BTW I’m in the same boat as you (almost… Wire = superior; Oz = as good; The Shield = not quite; Sopranos was very very good but not as amazing as everyone says it was, but it did help usher in/cement the concept of prestige television and what television narrative could do)
Building upon your observation, I’ve also noticed that folks who liked Tony the most and considered him a “hero” are the same people who say “The Sopranos would never air today because woke culture wouldn’t allow it!”The point is also lost on them that some of the most homophobic characters on the show (Richie and Phil Leotardo) quickly experienced some nasty deaths.
Because the whole point of the ending is that it doesn’t matter if he dies that second, that minute, that week or in five years. The paranoia he’s feeling in those moments won’t ever leave him (or us!).Saying he died there and then just isn’t a correct reading.
It was not overrated. None of the shows you mentioned were better than the Sopranos.
The Shield was corny AF
I thought it should have ended after the second season.
I think the finale of Season 5–Johnny Sack arrested while Tony makes a pathetic-looking getaway–would have been the perfect series finale. I like both parts of Season 6 but I don’t think they add much to the show.
So you’re saying the previews basically pulled a bait and switch since they made it seem like Tony was the main character and was centered on him.
Tony is still a major player in this film across the two time periods, he’s not the main character but they I don’t think he was ever pushed as such – Alessandro Nivola’s name is atop all the cast lists, posters etc.
that’s exactly what they didit was a bait-and-switch – Tony Soprano is a guest star in the Dick Moltisanti story
Did it die on the vine?
It died on the vine.
Oof Marone!
Shut up, Albert.
Can you imagine that? You get a facelift and one week later you’re in jail?
Can you imagine that. You get a facelift and one week later you’re in jail.
The look on Richie’s face after he hears Ally repeat him is just priceless.
Oh God that Richie face is priceless!
Not Fade Away whatever happened there
The second trailer made it clear that Tony was going to be a minor part of this, which seems like the right choice, given that they cast Gandolfini’s son solely for his name and genetics, rather than acting experience.
I dunno. Still seems worth a watch. Honestly, even Scorsese gangster films seem like a vague imitation of Scorsese these days. *shrug*
I love how nerdy Gandolfini’s son is in person, speaks to his acting chops.
So was his dad. I saw an interview with him once and was like “Shit, Kevin Finnerty was his real voice?!”
Yeah the Sopranos pilot features more of his real voice.
Apparently you have never seen The Last Castle, where he plays a coward of a military prison warden, or maybe The Mexican, where he plays a gay hit man.
Gandolfini played the accent thicker as the series went on; the pilot is basically “Jim Gandolfini pretends he doesn’t pronounce all his Rs” and I think by season 2 even it’s notably heavier.
A lot of people assume that the “New Jersey accent” is the silly voice that Tony and Carmela use in The Sopranos, but in reality, James Gandolfini’s real voice is the best example of a REAL Jersey accent. Edie Falco’s real voice is also a typical Jersey accent (although she’s from Long Island, which culturally isn’t much different).
Yeah, people dont realize the tony soprano accent was fake.
He had a decent recurring role in The Deuce, to be fair.And in this film, as the review mentions, it’s not *that* huge a role, anyway. Funnily enough, the actor playing child Tony is terrific.
He’s gandolfini’s real son, he has an edge there.
Are there plastic seat covers on the furniture? If not, deduct one letter grade.
So….. a junior varsity effort?
as bad as this movie was, i did get a chuckle out of the varsity athlete references, although having (young) Junior say it again was perhaps a bit too on the nose
Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), Tony’s mobster uncle and father of perennial Sopranos fuck-up Christopher
I was never quite clear (or maybe just never paid attention and/or forgotten) on Tony and Christopher’s actual family relationship, so thanks for that– but that would Tony and Christopher cousins, wouldn’t it? So why’d he keep calling him his nephew? Am I thinking too hard about this?
It’s an age thing. Being Italian in my family I have many second cousins etc that I refer to as my nieces and nephews solely bc of age.
Oh, that makes sense. I’m not Italian but I do have first cousins that are like 25 years older than me, who I might have called ‘uncle’ if it had ever occurred to me.
I’m an American of German-Irish descent and we do the exact same thing. Once you get into seconds and removeds and such everyone is just a cousin or uncle depending on whether they’re from your generation or your parents’
Scottish-Irish, coming to say the same thing😎
Ya got any Scottish in ya? Nah? Do ya want some?
I’m Scottish-Irish and we never talk to our relatives at all.
And if Kung Fu movies are to be believed, calling an older Chinese man “Uncle” is a mark of respect.
I had some old WASPy family friends that basically became uncles too, with no relation at all. They were just friends with my grandparents and my mom spent every summer up at their farm.
It was confusing because at first, maybe only in the pilot, they say Christopher was Carmela’s relation.
i never understood that at all. Because they had carmela’s parents on a lot-they didnt seem at all like mafia types, or mafia relatives. Unless the father’s just really good at hiding it, i dunno. Just from what ive read, Christopher’s mafia roots go back at least 2 generations-his father and uncle, and his grandfather.
Dickie’s mother was the sister of Carmella’s father.
He’s actually only related to him thru Carmella, who is Dickie’s cousin.
I think it’s actually Dickie’s wife Joanne who is related to her so Dickie has no blood relation that I know of
– Dickie’s mother and Carmela’s father (Hugh) were siblings (Chris is Carmela’s first cousin, once removed)
– Christpher’s mother Joanne Blundetto is Al Blundetto’s sister and Al’s wife Quintana is Livia’s sister. Tony B’s parents are uncle and aunt to both Tony and Christopher. Tony S and Christopher are both first cousins to Tony B, but not to each other- Tony remembers Dickie as “like a brother to him” and therefore an “uncle” to Dickie’s son Christopher.- Adriana mentions Tony and Christopher are distant blood relatives, but unknown for sure
No , Dickie was Carmella’s cousin, his wife was Tony Blundetto’s dad’s sister. Their dad was Livia’s brother, hence the cousins connections.
Google “sopranos family tree” and find your answers…
I think they’re not even related at all, Chris is actually related to Carm, he’s her first cousin once removed. His mother was Carm’s first cousin
Adriana actually has to clear this up the FBI because they were also confused. Chris is actually Carmella’s cousin. Dickie, his father, was a mentor to Tony and like an older brother to Tony, so he in turn views Chris like a nephew. THough they are also cousins as Chris’s Mom is related to Tony Blundetto.
https://zubindoshi.com/misc-projects/sopranos-family-trees/Carmela’s paternal aunt married Dickie Moltisanti’s father.But also Dickie Moltisanti himself married Joanne Blundetto, whose brother married Tony’s maternal aunt.In other words, Tony has no recent blood connection to the Moltisantis, but his family was already connected to theirs by marriage before he himself married a cousin of the Moltisantis.
Tony and Christopher actually aren’t related. Carmela and Christopher are distant cousins. However, to understand why Tony refers to Christopher as his nephew, you have to have some familiarity with Italian (particularly Sicilian) and Greek culture. We often call close friends of our parents “aunt” or “uncle”, despite there being no blood ties. Dickie was probably very close with Tony’s parents. Maybe their parents came over from the same village in Italy. Or maybe Dickie baptized one of the Soprano children. Either way, it’s a close relationship between the families that has gone on for generations. The result is that the Sopranos and Moltisantis treat each other like family even though there is no actual biological connection.
Christopher is Carmella’s cousin. Dickie is not Tony’s uncle, he was from Carmella’s side.
Chase very heavily hints in Many Saints that Dickie is actually Tony’s real father.
“Michael Imperioli reprises the role of Christopher to narrate the story from beyond the grave.”Oh, please tell me it begins with him saying something fucking stupidly self-reflexive like “I know, you’re thinking ‘I saw you die!’…” because that would be the shitty cherry on top of this movie. It looks like it came out in 1997.
Maybe he starts trying to convince the audience to buy some type of Tequila or another.
or he’s in an all white suit and bleeding from the neck
“I told Chase, you gotta make the full-length Cleaver! It’s the got the Godfather angle those other slasher flicks don’t have!”
Or he shills for HD DVD players.
What happened to men!?
For some reason he narrates it face-down from Norma Desmond’s swimming pool.
Slow clap😎
[We see the aftermath of a horrible car crash from above, with a man standing next to the driver’s side window of a smashed-up SUV. We slowly move in and recognize Tony Soprano as he holds his hand over Christopher Moltisanti’s nose and mouth, and watches as Christopher suffocates.] [Cue “Baba O’Riley”] Christopher [in voiceover]: Yup, that’s me! You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.
Probably crawled in there for warmth.
“Buy tickets to Cleaver”
Marty! Kundan! I liked it!
I read somewhere that he introduces young Tony by saying “That’s Tony Soprano. A few decades later, he strangled me to death.” I hope that’s not actually the case, especially since Tony didn’t strangle Christopher (rather, Tony held a seriously-wounded Christopher’s mouth and nose shut until Christopher died of asphyxiation).
My guess is that the original plan was for Gandolfini to narrate.
It turns out that he had been dead all the time since Joe Pesci killed him in the 1960s.
What exactly looks 1997 about the movie? Seriously curious.
they should have him fighting with adriana’s ghost.
Christopher Moltisanti, narrating not-so-live from Hell, which he knew in advance from a brief visit there would be an Irish bar.
Kinda?
Yet Saints borders on revisionist in the way it fails to match any understanding of the domineering shadow she supposedly cast over Tony’s childhood.Waitaminute isn’t the point of the show that Livia (while extremely callous and vindictive in her old age) gets the brunt of Tony’s ire, when Johnny Boy was the true bad influence?
Livia did yell at little Tony she wanted to stick a fork in his eye in a flashback. Johnny Boy is no saint, but Tony probably doesn’t mention any memories of him like that.
You’re right. He does mention Johnny Boy chopping Satriale’s finger off for gambling debts, which caused the association between his panic attacks and meat. But he regrets it and brings up that regret any time Melfi even approaches the topic of Johnny Boy not being the saint Tony makes him out to be; overall there’s a thread through the show where Tony wants to chalk all his problems up to mommy issues, when he’s got even more unexamined daddy baggage. I think Livia is very dysfunctional on her ownsome, but Tony describes her as wearing Johnny Boy “down to a nub,” when it seems likely the opposite happened.
Johnny wore down Lyvia too, like when she miscarried and he was off with his goomar, then made Tony lie about it. Also shooting at her beehive hairdo.
As portrayed in the original show, Johnny Soprano loved his son but was oblivious to how his actions affected Tony. I can think of two examples off the top of my head:1) In a first-season flashback, he’s constantly taking Janice to a carnival and leaving Tony at home, with the idea that the mob guys all take their daughters, then go and meet in the back to conduct business. But he never once thinks of how he’s affecting his son’s self-esteem by seemingly playing favorites with his daughter (who’s only too happy to rub Tony’s face in it).2) In the “In Camelot” flashback, Johnny literally tells Tony to lie to his own mother, who just suffered a miscarriage, about Johnny being with his mistress while his wife almost died and his unborn child DID die. Again, Johnny gives zero thought to the position he was putting Tony in.I’ll be interested to see how the movie treats the Johnny/Tony dynamic.
I think the point was they were both bad, but Tony only sees the problems as coming from his mother, because if he acknowledged wrongdoing on his father’s side he would have to acknowledge his own.We do come to see Livia as a victim of Johnnyboy by the end. But she tried to have her son killed, which is still maybe the worst thing any character does on the show. So she’s both victim and victimizer.
Also, Tony and Livia both venerate Johnny after he dies. Much easier to hate someone who in room with you needling you for putting her in nursing home than hate memory of your dead father.
She definitely knew how to manipulate, though not to the extent of a Livia from another Italian (well, Roman) family. I know Chase modeled Livia Soprano after his own mother, but I do wonder if some inspiration came from Livia from I, Claudius.
Oh, Chase was most definitely inspired by I, Claudius’ Livia – the two actresses even have similar, snake-like facial expressions.
She also prevented him from going legit when he got an offer to run a restaurant in Reno. That doesn’t take away from him being a maniac and a bad husband but they could’ve gotten out of the criminal life if it weren’t for her.
wasnt it unclear if she actually ordered it? I thought it was more like Junior decided, and he asked her thoughts on it and she was kind of like “ehh, maybe he’d be better off.” Which yeah, might put some responsibility for it on her, but thats not the same as saying “go kill him.” Its more like “i dont really care if you do.”
Yes and no. It’s definitely clear Livia is extremely cold and calculating and played a big role in Tony becoming Tony, but at the same time you are right that he puts all the blame on her and gives his Dad a free pass despite being equally, if not more so, responsible. Show touches on this, but I always wished they went into this deeper.
He liked his father though, he didnt like Livia. As far as I can see his father wasnt mean to him, or critical, at least not relative to how Livia was. And I dont know if he considers his father’s influence “bad”-he’s said one of his regrets as that he doesnt have it as good as his father did, and presumably his father (to him) is an example of the “old fashioned mobster/real man” image he tries to live up to.
Honestly the shallowness of it all seems appropriate. There’s no “there” there to these people. They’re just a bunch of brutes. Making Dickie a caricature — the kind of guy for whom you look at Tony and his empire and the mythos they’ve invested in Dickie and say “Him?”… couldn’t be more true to life.
I read the name Dickie and all I can think of is Dickie Crickets.
That make lot of sense — me always had sense that past Tony mythologized was just as shitty as Tony’s present, but it all seem bigger and more important because it his father’s world. But that let-down not really make for compelling movie.
That’s fair enough, but then why do they expect us to watch a movie about him?
Someone else commented that maybe the audience will finally dislike these guys as much as David Chase wanted them too, which I thought was pretty funny and also on point.
This is the problem with mob shows, mob movies. The creators – be they Chase, Scorsese, Coppola – might think they’re dissecting and exposing their characters. You put it onscreen, follow their story, they become heroic by default. Countless men of a certain generation seem to regard Michael Corleone’s story as the definitive take on the human condition. They’re always men, and usually middle managers. They see some kind of purity in the mob lifestyle, and it think it teaches zen-like lessons for their own life and work. They are idiots.
If anything, the Michael Corleones and Tony Sopranos of film and television should be seen as cautionary tales as to how NOT to live your life.
I have to admit, I really don’t understand the appeal of prequels. People seem to like them, because they keep getting made, but I really don’t care how the bad guy became the bad guy; I’d always much rather see new stories with open possibilities than something whose destination is a foregone conclusion. There are exceptions, but they’re rare.
I agree. I don’t mind a prequel set in the same universe utilizing peripheral or net new characters. But something with a foregone conclusion better be doing something really interesting/special to pique my interest.
Michael Imperioli reprises the role of Christopher to narrate the story from beyond the grave.Did they stitch him back together with a cleaver for a hand?
very observant – the sacred and the propane
I for one am glad it’s not all about Tony. Prequels are tricky enough without getting too much into the past of a character like him.
I’d like to see a prequel about Hesh. Hesh wants a prequel!
Taylor, who’s alternated high-profile HBO gigs with the big-budget franchise maintenance of Thor: The Dark World and Terminator GenisysI can’t imagine looking at those two films and thinking, “Let’s give this guy more work!”
Well he god the job because he worked on the show. There is an interview where Chase briefly expresses annoyance that Taylor didn’t want to listen to him like he used to on the show, because now he’s a big film director.
They really should have brought in Terence Winter instead to direct. Boardwalk Empire wasn’t as transcendent as Sopranos, but here’s a guy who understands how to write and shoot compelling mob stuff from different eras.
“…because now he’s a big film director who made the worst MCU movie and also the worst Terminator movie!”I mean, sure, he’s made movies, but you could say the same about Ed Wood.
hey, they could’ve gotten Scott Buck
RIP Joe Siravo.
He was REALLY good as Johnny Boy on the original series. And then he played Fred Goldman on American Crime Story.
This is a thoughtful and, apparently, necessarily harsh review of yet another “Shakespeare in Love” and “Shakespeare in Love” redux. I hope Chase will finally achieve what he wanted with the series, which was apparently for us to not like these guys.For the casting of Nivola…is it significant that in his best roles, Junebug, Laurel Canyon, he plays a cipher? Maybe he was great in The Art of Self Defense? I forgot I Want You was he great in that? I mean, he is a Mr. Handsome.
He was great as Nicolas Cage’s crazy brother in Face/Off, too!
he really failed if that was his goal, at least with the sopranos-it has more likable characters than any mob story ive ever seen.
Random comment, but the guy playing Dickie Moltisanti reminds of Richie Aprille every time I see this trailer.
When I heard that this was in the works, I assumed that it was going to be a television series, because how could it not be. Now it all fits.
See he was right about the streaming release…it ruined the movie experience. lol
It can’t be worse than “The Irishman”.
Two decades ago, The Sopranos proved you could create something truly novelistic on the small screen, helping usher in a supposed golden age of TV by using the freedoms of the format to tell sprawling stories—and develop characters—in a manner not possible on the big screen.The review follows this point by taking the film to task for not accomplishing these same things. You can’t have it both ways.
OOHHHHHHHHHH!
I still say this movie would have been better if it was just 140 minutes of young Tony waking up one morning and he’s got himself a gun.
Funnily enough with reference to the theme song, one of the things the film does that is very interesting to show that Tony really isn’t “The Chosen One”. It’s clear that there’s no expectation that “The son of Johnny Boy Soprano” is the heir apparent to the DiMeo family (ditto with Junior). He’s not in line for it, he doesn’t even particularly want it – I think it’s interesting that it gives the impression that Tony was never destined to be boss, he would have to reach out and take it.
Yeah, I feel this review (and the general reaction) isn’t giving the movie enough credit for some of its unexpected revelations. Granted, all of these revelations rely on the viewer’s prior knowledge of the series, but that’s how this movie was consciously devised and I don’t think that’s a knock against it any more than an average MCU entry.Johnny Boy is pretty much a non-entity, not shown to really be a major contributor or player within the DiMeo family during this time period. Tony was never groomed for a leadership role in the family. His childhood looks a lot like AJ’s, and his future crew (Silvio, Paulie, Pussy) treats him like a kid who can probably do better than hanging around the pork store. The movie clarifies just how much Tony constructed his own hell, and also shows for the first time that he was really emulating Dickie rather than Johnny Boy. But also that Dickie is indifferent towards Tony and largely rejected him. Tony makes a pact with the deceased Dickie at the end, but it’s a one way street. Had they met at Holsten’s, Dickie probably would have told him to keep his head down and study. The result is a clear demonstration that Tony was never as boxed in as he pretended to be with Melfi.
Yeah I admired that aspect of it, the Glory Days never truly existed and Tony idolizes these men mostly because he didn’t see them that much, and they were an escape from his mother. The casting of young(er) Tony was great, he looks like AJ did in the first couple of seasons
Damn you, anyhow, Arthur Aurelius Dowd! (Am I close?)
“Say, do you think we can get the guy that directed both the worst Thor movie AND the worst Terminator movie? WE CAN?!?”
“The cast of characters is a Muppet Babies parade of Sopranos regulars, some more elegantly de-aged than others.” ‘Nuff said.
If you’re interested you may want to check out Marc Maron’s interview of David Chase (http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1263-david-chase).Can’t say that Chase seemed terribly proud of this work…
So I’m ten episodes into The Sopranos, and I’ll confess it does nothing for me. Is it “going to get good later” or am I already in the good part and it’s just not for me? Thanks to anyone who answers.
Wrong. SAD!
like most shows it improves after the first season.
It definitely does, the show starts to find its footing with the College episode but second season is a huge step up
Thanks.
“This film was directed by the director of one of the MCU films!”
“Really? Which one?”
“… That’s not important.”
I’d love it if the trailers said “From the director of *a* Marvel film”
Or “from the director of the worst Thor film, AND the worst Terminator film.”
“this film was directed by the director of one of the Terminator films.” “Really? Which one?” “That’s not important.”
tbh i dont trust the review’s coming in. all of them seem to be built on the notion that a 2 hour film needs to have the same depth as a 100+ hour television show. and there also seems to be this expectation that the film needed to be exactly like the show despite the fact that the trailers already established this would be very different in tone.one commenter here talks about the original working because of the era it takes place in. if anything, thats more of a justification for why this film had to be grittier and different. if the show had humor and humanism to portray the dying of mob culture, would it not make sense that a prequel that shows the family’s heydey would be more serious and bloody?ultimately i think this leads into an issue that happens everytime an artist tries to add to a seasoned franchise in the pop culture milieu: critics and audiences being unable to realistically tame their expectations.nothing’s wrong with having an expectation going in, but i feel like theres this culture of demanding that our expectations be met in exact detail, lest the piece of media be forever damned as “not good enough”. *side eyes the star wars sequel haters* and i think this demand is extremely unhealthy and the antithises of art.
Dickie Moltisanti is from Carmella’s side of the family. He’s not Tony’s uncle. And neither was Tony Christopher’s “uncle” although he would at times refer to him that way. Perhaps you could say Dickie treated Tony like he was his uncle, and same for Tony with Christopher, but they weren’t blood.
This movie is critic proof. Every Sopranos fan will see it day one. Im sure its fine.
To me, this was the film’s biggest revelation: the truth about whether or not Tony had lied when he said the cop he’d tasked Chris to whack had killed Chris’ father.
Except Junior may tell Tony that the cop is the one who killed him.
It was technically unresolved as we didn’t see the identity of the actual shooter. We now know that Junior ordered Dickie killed for the most ridiculous and petty reasons — which is totally in character — but he could well have hired Barry Haydu to shoot him. Although even when that episode originally aired it was pretty clear that Tony was just making the whole thing up to manipulate Christopher.I think the more definitive answer the movie presents is that Tony totally got whacked in Holsten’s as Meadow walked in. Holsten’s is shown twice, both in close proximity to a death as well as Christopher’s voiceover from beyond the grave.
There’s also that moment where Tony talks about seeing a guy get shot in the back, and says, “I don’t want that to happen to me!” And Dickie responds, “As long as I’m around, it won’t!”
Yeah I noticed a bunch of other things on a second watch around this issue. One important clue is that Christopher makes it clear that he is privy to events that occurred after his death — he grumbles about how Tony gave his widow pocket change. This means Christopher also knows what happened to Tony in Holsten’s.The diner is a place of transition for Tony, because it’s the place where he died. Christopher knows this, and his voiceover appears while Holsten’s is shown for the first time, which also marks the transition to Michael Gandolfini as the young Tony. Holsten’s is also where Dickie was supposed to meet Tony and tell him to fly straight and stay out of the mob life. Dickie’s death causes him to miss that meeting, abandoning Tony to his fate, which is to be shot dead in Holsten’s in front of his family ~30 years later. The young Tony is framed like a prisoner in the diner while waiting for Dickie, because he’s now been trapped in the mob life, a path that leads inevitably to his demise If any of the other interpretations of the series finale were what was intended here, these references to Holsten’s would have no meaning. If Tony didn’t die in the diner, then nothing happened — the family just finished their meal and went home, it was a regular night out (and David Chase merely whacked the viewer). But if nothing happened in Holsten’s, there would be no reason to bring it back.
Dialed in, exploitative crap. Chase and associates clearly lost interest in the Sopranos during the last season of the show and by his own admission became hostile towards the show’s fans for hero worshiping Tony Soprano and giving us the ambiguous ending for good measure, and now he’s back peddling this stale, vapid, boring garbage. Happy I didn’t pay to see it.
Yeah, this was not good. Way too many too-cute callouts to the show. Most of the actors playing younger versions of Sopranos characters looked like they stepped out of an SNL skit. (Only young Gandolfini and, especially, the actress who played young Janice, came out OK.) Dowd is 100% right that you get no sense about how Dickie Moltisanti would influence Tony Soprano’s life, and that Farmiga seems to have mistakenly thought she was playing young Carmella. I’m also not at all fond of the revealed story about Moltisanti’s death, which seems antithetical to [SPOILER]’s character on the main show, who I can’t see killing a made guy out of spite. And on top of that the McBrayer plot seems unresolved.The best parts were Ray Liotta’s two characters, especially the imprisoned uncle, who was the only new element that reminded me of the old show.My complaint with so many limited series these days is that almost all of them should have been a 2-hour movie, but this is a 2-hour movie that really should have been a limited series, so that the story and characters can breathe a bit.
Not for nothing, but regarding that certain character who you “can’t see killing a made guy out of spite”…him doing exactly that (at least attempting to) is a pretty major plotline of the series.
But when he does that in the series he’s the boss, and he wouldn’t need permission to carry out the hit. I don’t see him as someone who would defy the very important mob rule that you can’t get rid of a made guy without permission; he’s a traditionalist.
I think everyone is seriously missing the point, even though it was laid right out there for all of us. Everyone thinks of Michael Imperioli’s casting as an odd choice rather than a significant one. But that is what the movie is about. This is CHRISTOPHER’S version of what happened. He is telling us about his father the way it was told to him. He is the most unreliable of unreliable narrators. Chris is NOT SMART. Chris thought Neil Young walked on the moon. Christopher never had a problem with Livia. Who knows what she told him about that time period? Well, we do, now. People complain that it’s trying to be Goodfellas, but that is the way Chris saw “the grownups”. He thought Family life was just like the movies. Of course his grandfather is Ray Liota. Of course his own father is a cardboard gangster movie cutout. The men he looked up to, the Saints, worshipped Scorcece. Paulie and Sil were characatures of their adult selves because Christopher didn’t know them as younger men. Or his father. Or his Uncle Tony, for that matter. As for the complaints I’ve seen about the whole“Oooooh, babies know things” thing, well, this is Chris, the film fanatic, giving us forshadowing. “When my Uncle held me, I cried.” Why did Livia come across as a loving, misunderstood mother instead of a monster? Because she’s the one who filled Chris’s head with all of this nonsense to begin with. The Saints of Newark was told to us by Christopher Maltisanti by way of Livia “Your Father Was A Saint” Soprano. Fight me.
A-friggin-men. I just finished this utter whiff of a movie and agree with every single word of this review.What a shambling, unfocused mess that spends almost no meaningful time on what should be its central relationship, between Dickie and Tony. What a colossal waste and waste of time.
This review betrays what I can only describe as a curious set of expectations for the film. It seems to be a review of things it’s not, but should be. I thought that the film was quite clever.
As someone who hates mob movies but loved The Sopranos almost against my will, I totally agree with the review. It was just a typical mobster story full of the usual 60s soundtrack shout outs that make me tired. The Gandolfini stunt casting didn’t help.
I think this movie was somewhat unnecessary but for fans, it was quite watchable. The scene in the beach was really hard to watch though. And it ending with that song was a good thing.
I was glad they weren’t too cool to break out the old theme song.
This review sums up precisely as to what I thought was also wrong. It is basically a bait and switch. This story is basically the story of Dickie Multisanti, who the story acts was like a real person, like Henry Hill. The movie is episodic and telling his life, like “Goodfellas” with Henry Hill. BUT, this really does not make a lot of sense as Dickie is a fictional person..and one not really central to the Sopranos, and even Tony. So the story kind of meanders whenever they include Tony and his family, as there really is not a lot of connective tissue there with the plot between Dickie and what is going on with the Soprano family. Same with the african american criminals. It is like they are telling three stories, not really connected, except by the barest of framing devices. (Although one worked for Dickie and has a role in causing more violence in Dickie), the actual crime network they create really does not matter a lot to the plot.If they just concentrated on Dickie and made clear that this was his story, with a fun cameo from a very young Tony, this might have worked as a fictional “Henry Hill”-esque fake biopic. But they way this movie sprawls is a mess.
This was so bad I thought it was SNL skit of people doing bad impressions of characters from the show.
Got to watching it, I enjoyed it but it really doesn’t stand on its own, you need that backdrop of the show to appreciate the shameless Easter eggs (which I didn’t expect to be as prevalent)
I’m really surprised Chase included so many easter eggs; he never struck me as the sort of guy who found that sort of thing clever.
Yeah, I wonder if the studio strongarmed him into some of that. The way I pictured the hair-shooting of Lydia was way different than how the movie did it. Tony and Janice talked like it was something they saw as younger kids.
And IIRC that is was something accidental? I need to go back and find where they talked about that to see how they described it, because it didn’t match my recollection either. [And I don’t buy the explanation that every recollection of the past in The Sopranos is wrong because they’re looking at the past through rose-colored glasses; that seems like a post hoc rationalization for a lot of this movie’s flaws]
I dunno. Everything I’ve heard from people who’ve actually seen it is that it’s awful.
Is Dickie’s girlfriend Christopher’s mother? They have the same nose. And there is a scene where Dickie is saying that him and his wife can’t conceive