Movie Review - The Many Saints of Newark

This film is a prequel to HBO's The Sopranos (1999), a hit TV series. It was a ratings success. It also was nominated and received numerous prizes, including the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series, which it won twice. However, I personally never watched the show. Despite its success and critical acclaim, it became a cultural blind-spot for me. During the time of its run, I was more obsessed with network shows like FOX's The X-Files (1993) and ABC's The Practice (1997). I wasn't watching a lot of shows on premium cable. The only drama on HBO to which I paid attention was Six Feet Under (2001).

HBO with The Sopranos and even Oz (1997) had really gotten the ball rolling with this trend on television of antiheroes. It's a trend with which I wasn't on board at first. I didn't really get on board until I saw FX's The Shield (2002). I loved that show and it actually ended the same year as The Sopranos. I even remember an article that said at the time how the ending to The Shield was perceived to be better than the ending to The Sopranos. In the nearly 15 years since that ending, the perception has veered more positive. Obviously, the antihero series is practically ubiquitous in television now. It's always been a thing in film, especially in films about gangsters or mobsters. The question becomes what can this film possibly bring to the genre that hasn't already been brought.

Alessandro Nivola (Jurassic Park III and Face/Off) stars as Dickie Moltisanti, the father to Christopher Moltisanti. If the name, Christopher Moltisanti, doesn't mean anything to you, which it didn't to me, then you should know that Christopher was a major supporting character in The Sopranos. Tony Soprano who was the protagonist or antihero in that 1999 series was a father-figure to Christopher, ever since Dickie died. Dickie was never a character in the series. His depiction here is new for fans of the series, and it's interesting and perhaps ironic that this film is about how Dickie was himself a father-figure to Tony.

Michael Gandolfini is the real-life son of James Gandolfini, the Emmy-winning actor who starred as Tony Soprano. Here, Michael Gandolfini also stars as Tony Soprano but Tony Soprano as a teenager. There have been plenty of times when an actor has played their own parent or has played a younger version of a character their parent has played in a film or TV show. Often, the actor will fill their parent's shoes in one way or the other, while the parent is still alive. Such was the case with O'Shea Jackson Jr. in Straight Outta Compton (2015) and Shia LaBeouf in Honey Boy (2019). It's perhaps rare when the actor has to do so after their parent has died, but that's what Michael Gandolfini is tasked to do as a young Tony Soprano and he does a good job. He's not really the center of this film though.

Nivola's character of Dickie is the real center. However, Dickie isn't what's the most interesting thing about this narrative. The most interesting thing is a sub-plot that intersects with what Dickie is doing. Dickie is a member of a crime family. He becomes the head of that crime family due to some misdeeds on his part that he doesn't necessarily intend, but now that's his reality. There is a part of Dickie that wants to be a good person. His last name is a word that translates to "many saints." He probably knows he'll never be a saint but there's still a part of him that wants to do good things. One of those good things would be his involvement or lack thereof in Tony Soprano's young life.

Aside from Dickie's bouts of violence, which causes him to struggle with the idea of being a good person or doing good things, the most interesting thing that intersects with his rise in the crime family is the subplot involving race relations. In fact, this film takes place at first during the 1967 riots in the United States, specifically the riots in Newark, New Jersey, where Dickie and his family lives. That's something different perhaps that this film brings. This film deals with race relations between Italian and African-American gangsters in this area in that time. I'm not sure how many films have dealt with race relations in this milieu. There have probably been blaxploitation that has done so like Shaft (1971). Some could probably even point to films like Harlem Nights (1989) or American Gangster (2007). I didn't start picking up on race relations in the gangster or mobster genre until Season 4 of Fargo (2014) and earlier this year in Steven Soderbergh's No Sudden Move (2021).

Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami and Hamilton) co-stars as Harold McBrayer, a Black man who works for Dickie and his Italian crime family. He endures racist comments from that family and even emasculating comments from Dickie himself. As the race riots erupt, Harold begins to feel the issues plaguing Black people and wants to break away from Dickie. He also wants to rise in power and challenge Dickie in various ways. This was exactly the plot in that Season 4 of Fargo and No Sudden Move, but those titles never made it to theaters. This one did and rendered it dynamically and in a way that engaged me.

Unfortunately, Harold and his veritable war with Dickie is again just a subplot. This film otherwise is for people to be nostalgic about the 1999 series. I wouldn't put it above something like No Sudden Move, which featured Ray Liotta who is also featured in this film. The use of Liotta is actually intriguing here. Liotta has done quite a few gangster or mobster films, ever since his standout role in Goodfellas (1990). There are for sure some standout moments here, but, I don't think I was ever as fully invested as I was with something like Goodfellas or the other Martin Scorsese gangster flick, The Irishman (2019). I perhaps would have, if I had been a fan of The Sopranos.

Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language and some nudity.
Running Time: 2 hrs.

In theaters and on HBO Max.