Cry Uncle! "The Many Saints of Newark"

The Many Saints of Newark
directed by Alan Taylor
written by David Chase and Lawrence Konner

I just watched The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel to The Sopranos, and while it had its moments, I'm not sure it really needed to be made. It's not exactly an origin story, but it's in The Sopranos Universe.

As a fan of that the long-running HBO series about the modern-day New Jersey mob capo who tried to manage family, love, and the often murderous flow of criminal business by visiting a shrink, I was interested in this film. I thought I would be seeing how the young and at one point presumably innocent Tony Soprano became big smart sexy scary sinister screwed-up Tony Soprano. But that's not what this film is about.

The clue that the film is about the many moral failings of Tony's psochopathic uncle Dickie Moltisanti is in the title: Moltisanti means "many saints" in Italian. This is explained in the early voiceover from beyond the grave by murdered Sopranos character Christopher Moltisanti, voiced once more by The Sopranos star Michael Imperioli (in a narrative nod to such films as Sunset Boulevard, where the narrator is already dead when the film begins).

It takes a while for the story to settle in after reacquainting us with the Molitsantis, Sopranos, and the others who frequent Satriale's Pork Store in 1960s Newark. Handsome and charismatic Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) is the boss, running a profitable numbers game in the hood with the help of Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom, Jr.) with whom he went to high school. But racial tensions run high during that era, as civil rights legislation may have been enacted but holds no sway among the bigoted working-class Italians who remain in the city even as white flight has turned Newark into a largely black city. Tensions escalate when Harold decides he's had enough of being Dickie's errand boy and wants to run things himself, while simultaneously the streets erupt with protests then four days of rioting, looting, and burning in the historic 1967 Newark Riots, after a black cab driver is beaten and believed killed by the police. The riots give Dickie a cover for his own ghastly and impulsive act of violence.

Actor Alessandro Nivola looks the part, but he never really finds a rhythm as Dickie Moltisanti, who cycles between good intentions, criminal activity, family devotion, murder, and repentance. He's a seemingly good guy with some serious emotional issues. But do we root for him?
As Tony Soprano, the late actor James Gandolfini had several seasons in which to build an intensely compelling character who was both sympathetic and repellant; in this one-off prequel, Nivola doesn't get to dig as deep, so I found myself not really caring what becomes of him. (Not to mention the fact that to me, he looks a lot like Milo Ventimiglia, the good guy dad from TV's This Is Us). Maybe we're not supposed to care.

Actor Leslie Odom Jr., who portrays Harold McBrayer, Dickie's flunky-turned-adversary, fares far better in the narrative, having no equivalent in the Sopranos series and demonstrating the Black Power ethos of the era. One of the strengths of the film is that it gives so much attention, historically and culturally, to the considerable racial tensions from a ground-level point of view, without painting African Americans in a negative light. That's quite a trick, considering that Harold proves to be as cunning, dangerous, and quick on the trigger as Dickie.

The women in this film get short shrift. We don't get to see how Livia (Vera Farmiga) turns into the monster mother of adult Tony's nightmares, but we get a glimmer. But from the moment Dickie's father, Hollywood Dick, brings home Giuseppina (Michela de Rossi), his prized soon-to-be trophy wife from Italy, we know she will be the femme fatale of the piece. Looking like an Italian Penelope Cruz, Giuseppina is the very attractive fly in the ointment, the naive undoing of everyone around her.

Though we do see younger versions of familiar figures from The Sopranos universe, including Tony's lunkhead father Johnny, sister Janice, and narcissist mother Livia; soldier Paulie and consigliere Silvio; an arch and vindictive Uncle Junior (Corey Stoll); and fleeting looks at a young Carmela and a young Christopher, they are mere ciphers. In this plot, teenaged Tony's character is there to react as his favorite uncle Dickie at first grooms and counsels him, then emotionally and ultimately physically abandons him. Played by Michael Gandolfini, the lookalike son of James Gandolfini, young Tony Soprano loves rock music, wants to play football, and only has vague ideas of what his father and other relatives are really up to in the wee hours of the night. Losing Uncle Dickie is one of Tony Soprano's steps toward understanding the high price of "this thing of ours."

Given the ending, which offers something of a twist, I couldn't help noticing the film's zigzag pattern of uncles and their roles in this extended web of mob families. Unseen but shadowing the entire tale is the bitterness of the deceased Christopher Moltisanti, who bears a justifiable grudge against his "uncle" Tony Soprano for deeds that will come decades later; after the death of his father, Dickie Moltisanti seeks counsel and a kind of moral benediction from his imprisoned uncle, Sally (Ray Liotta, who also plays Dickie's father), to whom he nevertheless lies about his misdeeds; teenaged Tony is hurt and angry about being inexplicably snubbed by his uncle Dickie; and Uncle Junior ...? Well, though we don't see much of him in this film, we're abruptly reminded that he's the same touchy, merciless sociopath he's always been.

Maybe it should have been called "The Many Uncles of Newark."

Though the story created by The Sopranos originator David Chase can stand on its own, The Many Saints of Newark suffers from its comparison to The Sopranos. Were you really expecting a Mafia psychodrama that reaches the same heights as the beloved HBO series? Fuhggeddaboutit.