299.
The Many Saints of Newark
6.5/10
This movie wasn't really one I had planned to see straight away but the lads fancied it and as a gang, we booked our seats. Now they have either seen The Sopranos TV series in its entirety or were working through it at the time of watching this movie. I on the other hand had never seen an episode and still haven't. The TV shows I believe revolve around Tony Soprano and his mafia family. This movie will be set before that time, as Tony is a kid. The lads were excited, I had no idea what to expect but enjoy movies such as Scarface and Goodfellas, and I knew that I at least enjoyed the crime genre.
So the movie follows a crime family member named Dickie Moltisanti played by Alessandro Nivola, who is the mentor to a young Tony Soprano. They both travel to welcome home Dickie's father and his new young bride and are joined by many other family members who feature in the TV series but are obviously played by younger cast members. The year is 1967 and a black man is killed by some cops causing riots throughout Newark. Harold, one of Dickie's men, kills a white guy who is trying to loot his shop and quickly moves away before he is caught and locked up.
The time passes and the family starts to crack a little as Dickie's old man pushes the wife down the stairs and Dickie ends up accidentally killing his old man for this before dumping his body in one of his businesses and burning it down, acting as it all happened during the riots. This leads him into sleeping with his, at the time, step-mom and Tony is suspended from school for starting a gambling ring. Dickie loves the promise in the kid but at the same time, needs him to follow the rules for a while.
Years pass now and we are in 1972, some family get out of prison, Harold returns to Newark looking to start black-led crime operations and the actor playing Tony is now Michael Gandolfini, the son of the later James Gandolfini who played Tony in the TV series.
Dickie's lady has an affair with Harold and a little war is raged as Dickie kills one of Harold's men and Harold retaliates with the life of one of Dickie's family. Dickie's life is starting to fall apart now as Tony's mother warns him about being around her son as everyone seems to die. After a funeral, a family member falls down the stairs and Dickie laughs in front of a lot of people. Dickie finds out about his missis's affair in full and drowns her and everyone's suspicions are finally up. Tony is infuriated that his uncle has been ignoring him and tracks him down. The end doesn't end well as he refuses to meet his nephew. The night and movie draw to a close as Dickie is shot in the back of the head on the orders of Junior, the guy that fell down the stairs after the funeral. This apparently was a bombshell in the tv show as the audience didn't find out for a long time who actually ordered the hit. The movie finally ends with Tony standing at the coffin at the funeral and Harold moving into a white neighbour, seemingly flourishing with his new business venture.
I'll be honest and say I think this story was a little lost on me. It relied quite heavily on the characters that proceeded this movie and even with some of the storylines such as the killing at the end, it had no relevance to me and each link to the series was completely lost on me. This would have had a massive impact on me because unlike something like Goodfellas, some aspects of the movie were completely lost on me. Knowing that I hadn't seen The Sopranos this movie did nothing for me to go and immediately watch the series. It didn't really drive forward the rise of Tony which I expected it to but that isn't something I then drew to expect as I realised how young Tony was in the movie. Instead, the story focused on an uninspiring character who had his moments but didn't really lead a dominating crime family as I loved in Goodfellas.
The character development in the movie was way below par and rather than leading the line in crime, it seemed like a family and their tantrums. Alessandro Nivola has been in a couple of movies that I have been through. Goal! Face/Off and Jurassic Park III to name a few. A different role played in each, the guy 100% has range. In this movie I didn't feel he was a mob boss, I didn't watch the movie thinking this guy is a badass, even when killing, the character seemed very subdued and I'm not sure the writing did him justice. I'm not under the impression that this was the actors' fault. If you looked at a cast listing featuring Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga and Corey Stroll, you'd be an idiot to not be impressed. When you watch the movie as a stand-alone, you would be right to not be impressed. The one part I did think was a cool addition would be Michael Gandolfini. It was a very interesting idea to bring him in to play the young version of a character that his dad made extremely famous within one of the biggest TV shows of all time. He gave a good account for someone who hasn't been acting too long but who am I to judge.
I've typed it once and I'll type it again. This movie did not make me want to go home and start watching The Sopranos for the first time. I haven't really asked how the fans of the TV shows found this movie but from the reviews, it looks like they ended it as much as the ending of the final episode. A boring, uninteresting crime movie that could have been so much more if it just looked into how the other feature movies of the same genre went about their business. Even I doubt that this movie did the series any sort of justice.
