PLOT: Years before running the mob in New Jersey, Anthony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini) is a young man being raised in Newark, with his dad Johnny Boy (Jon Bernthal), a mob captain who doesn’t want his son involved in the family business. Tony looks to his charismatic uncle Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) for guidance. However, the older man is himself caught up in a racial reckoning in the Newark underworld, which promises to have fallout that will echo throughout the Soprano family for generations to come.
REVIEW: Here’s my only real problem with The Many Saints of Newark – it left me wanting more. As much as I enjoyed David Chase’s two-hour Sopranos prequel, part of me wishes it were a limited series so that I could spend more time with the unforgettable characters he’s created. Anyone who’s ever watched The Sopranos will tell you that the cast of characters, from Tony on down to the lowest member of his street crew, were incredibly watchable and expertly cast. The same thing goes for The Many Saints of Newark, with Alessandro Nivola at long last getting a chance to lead a movie after years as a perennially undervalued supporting player.
The film is being sold as an origin film for Tony Soprano, and while that’s part of it, in reality, this is much more of a character study, with Dickie Moltisanti the focus. As anyone who watched the show will tell you, Dickie is a legendary figure in the Sopranos crew, with his son Christopher benefitting from his dad’s rep, which is a double-edged sword as he’s constantly measured against him. As we see here, Dickie is a lot like Christopher in a lot of ways. While perhaps more outwardly charming and charismatic, the two possess the same deadly, hair-trigger temper. In addition, both are obsessed with the idea of penance for their crimes, lest they pay for it in the afterlife. Perhaps the most brilliant conceit of The Many Saints of Newark is that Michael Imperioli narrates it as Christopher – who’s literally in hell.
Nivola has the right swagger for a mobster, with his characterization, as opposed to Michael Gandolfini as the young Tony, and interesting look at the changing face of the mob. The older generation, represented by Ray Liotta in dual roles, have less swagger, but old world ideals. By contrast, Dickie and Jon Bernthal’s Johnny Boy are flashier, Rat Pack-Esque gangsters. They initially seem more modern, but they’re also ugly racists and condescending to the black guys working for them (including Leslie Odom Jr., dangerous numbers-runner, Harold), and they have no idea that their era is coming to an end.
The Many Saints of Newark dives head-on into the developing race war between the Italian mob and the black numbers crew that used to be their underlings but now want a bigger piece of the pie. It’s an interesting companion piece to Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, in that the real-life mobster Denzel Washington played, Frank Lucas, is a significant figure here thanks to his deep pockets from selling smack. Likewise, Odom Jr’s Harold is an interesting character in that he and Dickie are “almost” friends, but only as long as Harold stays in his place. The dynamic they set up here plays out over and over during The Sopranos‘ long run, with Tony being more political in some ways, even if he was a die-hard racist deep down (not that he would ever think of himself that way). Nivola’s Dickie is also largely defined by his womanizing, just and Tony and Christopher were. His lust towards his dad’s new Italian bride (Michela De Rossi) is a key element in his undoing, as one might imagine.
That’s another thing I’ve always appreciated about Chase’s work and is reflected here. As charismatic and likeable as these guys may be, they always pulled the rug out from under you to drive home the fact that at the end of the day, these guys were sociopaths. They were definitively not heroes, or even anti-heroes. There are a lot of great moments here to drive home that fact, although of them all, perhaps none is more even than Vera Farmiga’s Livia.
The movie depicts her as something of a shrew, even if she has moments of introspection that make you wish she’d go see one of the “shrinks” she despises so thoroughly. Under a big fake nose, Farmiga is having a blast playing entirely unsympathetic and evil, a far cry from the roles she’s usually played. Although his part is relatively brief, Jon Bernthal is also quite good as the Sopranos patriarch, Johnny Boy. Familiar faces from Tony’s crew are present here, with Billy Magnussen playing Paulie Walnuts and John Magaro an uncanny Silvio Dante (we see the origins of his wig), but the movie’s not about them. Of the older characters, Corey Stoll as Uncle Junior, gets the best material. He further develops the fact that Junior was almost the most dangerous of all of them despite his slight stature, and probably the most evil.
As for Michael Gandolfini, it should come as no surprise that his performance is spot-on. What’s especially good about him here is how nuanced he is. The Tony Soprano we see in this movie is not the one his late father played. Even on the show, Tony, while thoroughly detestable in many ways, had his good points. The Tony we see here is more soft-spoken and outwardly vulnerable. He’s the Tony that loved the ducks in his backyard or Pie-O-My. Gandolfini plays him beautifully, but also once or twice shows that he can convey the same simmering rage his dad did in the part, making one hope this is not the last we’ve seen of his Tony Soprano.
Like the show, The Many Saints of Newark has a terrific soundtrack containing some choice needle drops, including some unconventional choices along the way that may surprise you. One of the show’s most frequent directors, Alan Taylor, is behind the camera here, and he does an expert job making it feel a bit like the show in some ways while also giving the film its own cinematic identity. It’s too bad that most will see this streaming, as its obvious great pains were taken to make it feel like a film, but alas, at least we’re getting it at all.
Suffice to say, I loved diving right back into the world of The Sopranos, but it also struck me as bittersweet as, by the time the credits rolled, I was desperate for another episode. I guess we’ve been spoiled with streaming services and an abundance of content. In a lot of ways, I wish this were the beginning of a five-season series. I hope David Chase, Alan Taylor and the rest of the crew aren’t done with the characters because they’ve left me wanting more.