The Sopranos changed the way we watch and make TV. It almost singlehandedly changed the game for the medium, shaping HBO into what it is today, with it still owing its reputation to the massive success and acclaim David Chase and his team generated for them. There may have been better shows since its first arrival, but The Sopranos remains untouchable in what it achieved by making TV truly cinematic, providing a blueprint for what appears to be an infinite amount of shows who owe so much to it.
Then one day, it all came to an end. Arguably the most iconic and polarized cut to black in TV history, David Chase created something that was undeniably genius and bold in its execution and intention with a finale that is still being discussed with rousing love or spitting hatred. But that’s an entirely different discussion for another post for another day (personally, I loved it). 14 years later, we have the arrival of a new chapter in The Sopranos story. One that has been long-delayed and long-discussed with cautious excitement. So, does it hold a candle to the legacy of The Sopranos? The short answer is no. It most certainly does not.
Thankfully, David Chase doesn’t risk coming back and completely undoing the finale that has since appreciated in value as people re-examine just how smartly executed and realized it was and still is. But in what is most certainly a well-intentioned attempt, he inadvertently sours key elements and moments from the show that were important footnotes in characters and their journeys from the first episode to its last. This ranges from glaring plot holes to inconsistent timelines that don’t quite add up, making it a hard experience for some fans to overcome as well as being an alienating stand-alone experience for non-viewers of the show.
So, what’s it all about then? This is where it gets hazy and paper-thin even while watching the film. The most basic synopsis of The Many Saints of Newark takes place between 1967 and the early 70s with us following Dickie Moltisanti’s influence on a young Tony Soprano, and how his prominent rise to the top and personal life topples and influences power within the DiMeo crime family. Fans of the series will immediately perk up at the name Dickie Moltisanti. Moltisanti literally translates to Many Saints, so already we are given an idea that Dickie will be the primary protagonist here. Given his legacy and mythos in the show, a character which we never see but only hear about and feel his influence on both Tony and Christopher (Dickie's son), this was going to potentially answer many questions and finally show us just how big of an influence he was on one of the most complexly written characters in TV history: Tony Soprano. But this is where the confusion comes in as to what to expect when sitting down to watch The Many Saints of Newark. Along with Dickie's plot, Tony's origin story and the supposed backdrop of Newark race riots of 1967, they never quite make sense together. Quickly abandoning some of these ideas as the running-time ticks along, with creator David Chase and his co-writer Lawrence Konner forgetting what their intentions were in the first place.
First with the positives: The Many Saints of Newark looks great. It really does. It sounds great as well with a sharp contemporary soundtrack that perfectly merges the rock tastes of a teenage Tony Soprano with the old-school pop music of the older wise guys. It does what Goodfellas did well in its musical language, giving us a taster into the growing generations and their evolving sensibilities. Another massive positive is that of Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of Tony’s infamous, toxic mother in Livia Soprano. She brings the same pessimistic, vindictive charm that made her such a fascinating character in the show to hate for all the right reasons. The rest of the cast is perfectly fine (except for a particularly hammy, spotty performance of two halves from Ray Liotta), but is hard done by thanks to the lackluster writing (much like this rambling review). Unfortunately, these positives are completely buried alive by the overwhelmingly infuriating negatives that come into play with Many Saints, ones that start as a positive, only to quickly teeter out into pointless hypotheticals.
As mentioned before, Dickie Moltisanti’s looming shadow is felt in The Sopranos, particularly that of Tony's relationship to Christopher as mentor, uncle (not by blood), and antagonist in both a negative and positive way. It is one of the most fascinating and multi-layered relationships ever committed to screen, so of course, the pressure couldn’t be higher on delivering a character that lives up to the expectations built up in our heads while watching the series. However, Dickie Moltisanti’s mythic legacy quickly fizzles out into a bland, one-dimensional character that is barely interesting at all. Barring a few smartly realized twists here and there, it still doesn’t make him compelling enough to warrant a two-hour film centered around him, especially considering that barely anything mildly interesting is revealed to us. I get that the intention could be that Tony clearly thought too much of him, but none of what he was known for in the series is even considered here - stuff that we would love to have seen and would've actually made him a great character to watch. Nothing of his exploits when he single-handedly took out a New England crew and nothing of his addiction to heroin (just to name a few), something Christopher subconsciously sees as him being just like his dad. Apart from his need to find redemption scattered about, Dickie just doesn’t ever evoke interest from me, and even those moments of redemption are nonsensical, leading to lazy solutions and a character arc that is completely unearned.
If you’re going to hint at the idea of a movie about who made Tony Soprano (like a key poster does), then show us that. We don’t really get any of that at all, not even a compelling tease. For one, we barely see Tony Soprano in the film. Secondly, we only get a teenage Tony halfway through the film, played by James Gandolfini's actual son, Michael. None of the complexities and revelations from the show about Tony’s intelligence, depression and extreme anxiety from his youth seem to be a factor at all in this film. It’s as if the only detail they remember about Tony is his athleticism as a football player in high school and his relationship with his mom, which is hardly addressed and only given to us in a small scene that ends up being a better, more effective revelation for Livia’s character instead. None of the trauma he experienced in his childhood that we learned from Tony’s sessions with Dr. Melfi seems at all prevalent. Is this even Tony Soprano?
The entire Soprano family is also wasted as background characters, and what makes it even more frustrating is that they remind us just how fascinating the family dynamic in The Sopranos was and still is. Jon Bernthal as Tony’s father Johnny is once again, reliable, but is barely utilized at all, and an excellently casted Corey Stoll as Uncle Jun is shoehorned in as a sort of fan-service comic relief for fan-favourite lines that work as punchlines with no real weight or meaning behind any of his other dialogue scattered about. Familiar faces come and go, with some barely getting a chance to make us care about their inevitable fates and character arcs. Paulie Walnuts doesn’t really feel like Paulie, Big Pussy says one or two lines, Silvio is as cartoonishly one-dimensional as ever - which the actor is hardly to blame for given the fact that his character in the show wasn’t particularly well-written, utilized or performed with his stupid pouty face doing the most stereotyped mobster impression ever committed in a dramatic TV series. Jackie Aprile has one minor scene, Artie Bucco shows up here and there, but where is everyone else? Where the hell is Richie Aprile? Hesh Rabkin’s exclusion is the most baffling considering the relationship he had with most of the characters mentioned. Don’t introduce these iconic, familiar characters and not have them really play a part in anything meaningful within the story at all. Instead, they're used as mere quirks instead of fully-formed characters. And those are just the faces we know from the series. Leslie Odom Jr.’s talent is completely wasted on what would’ve been an interesting character in Harold, a thug for Dickie. Instead, he's used as a sloppy plot device that nudges Dickie towards unearned, baffling actions that pushes him to the film's finale.
But the biggest inconsistency that really made it hard for me to recover from is the ages of each character. In the series, Silvio is two years older than Tony, with Paulie being 17 years older and Big Pussy five years Tony’s senior. Tony even talked about how he was in a crew with Silvio and Jackie in their teens and early twenties, robbing card games, etc. But Silvio here is well into his twenties (and balding) when Tony is ten, looking closer to Paulie’s age. It literally makes no sense as Big Pussy and Silvio already appear to be important muscle for the DiMeo crime family when Silvio would only be 12 and Big Pussy a teenager at that stage. This completely fucks the timeline of The Sopranos and makes me wonder if David Chase even remembers the characters he created.
At least the story is good, right? Bad news. There is barely a plot here, like at all. The Many Saints of Newark's potential plot points have major potential Hell, one synopsis makes a point in stating that all this takes place against the backdrop of the race riots in Newark, 1967. It doesn’t. It barely plays a part at all in the overall story, making it feel like a cheap grab at trying to be culturally and socially relevant for the now. If you’re going to introduce racial tensions as a possible, major plot point, then run with it. But they don’t make use of it, forgetting they wanted to use it in the first place. It never ends up affecting any of the characters or plot whatsoever, so what the hell is the point of that? The characters from the show were always shitty, racist people, but it just never has any payoff or purpose here. The potential of these thematic plot points never see the light of day again, once again leading characters to dead-ends that are completely forgotten by Chase and Konner.
So many potentially important plot points and character beats get introduced, but they never link up, leaving us with threadless moments floating in purgatory with absolutely nowhere to go. There isn't even room for subjective debates on what it all means as they give nothing to us apart from being random interactions with nothing to say or do. Unlike the fruitful sessions between Tony and Dr. Melfi, or the surreal brilliance of the dream sequences in the series, "Uh yeah I dunno" seems to be the general response from Chase and Konner as we move past each gaping plot hole that fail to answer questions or provide solutions. When the film does come to an end, we are given a nice little piece of insight into a major character, but that’s all we are rewarded with. Instead, we are given slivers of what could’ve been if we got a little effort in trying to make a film more consistent with the quality and intelligence we came to expect with The Sopranos.
The Many Saints of Newark is by no means a worthy addition to the world of The Sopranos. Instead, it plays as a poorly conceived piece of fan fiction. Its lack of consistent characterizations and structured plot makes it a weak and forgettable footnote that should only be seen as a mere curiosity among fans, and even then, fans will either love it or hate it. Even as a standalone outside the confines of The Sopranos, it’s a poor mob movie. Period - with lazy clichés and tropes that have been done to death in by-the-numbers gangster movies. If David Chase does return for more as he has mentioned in the past, let's hope he makes use of the rich themes and characters he had already created so lovingly from the ground up.
Where you can watch it: HBO Max (USA) In Theatres (USA, UK)
Comments