The Many Saints of Newark: Far from celestial

The Many Saints of Newark (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violence, pervasive profanity, sexual content and nudity

Available via: HBO Max and movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

I’ve never before seen a bait-and-switch movie.

 

Fans approaching this film anticipating the origin and molding of Tony Soprano — a quite reasonable expectation, given the way The Many Saints of Newark has been marketed — are certain to be disappointed.

 

When his father returns home after a four-year prison stretch, teenage Tony
(Michael Gandolfini, left) — uncertain what to say or do — must be encouraged by
his "uncle" Dickie (Alessandro Nivola) to go with his heart.

This is, instead, a years-long study of a slowly building turf war between New Jersey’s Italian Mafiosi — which, yes, includes numerous individuals who will, in time, become the running characters on the six-season HBO series — and competitors spawned by the rising Black power movement. The young Tony Soprano is, at best, a very minor character in these events … and, more crucially, the David Chase/Lawrence Konner script gives absolutely no indication of what will trigger the kid’s eventual rise to power.

I’ll take that a step further: As clumsily played by Michael Gandolfini — the late James Gandolfini’s son, in a bit of stunt casting that bespeaks sentimentality rather than common sense — there’s no way this pasty, sullen, self-centered mope ever could become the adult Tony Soprano that we loved and loathed. Fuhgeddaboudit.

 

What we’re left with, instead, is a mildly absorbing, Godfather-esque crime saga centered on the complex private and professional relationships between the Soprano and Moltisanti families. Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) is the Al Pacino-esque central character who, during his more rational moments, attempts to maintain unity while tending to his end of the “family business.”

 

Sadly, Dickie — very well played by Nivola — is prone to explosive bursts of temper, with dire results.

 

This saga is occasionally narrated — in a cheeky bit of storytelling — by Michael Imperioli’s Christopher Moltisanti, speaking from beyond the grave. (We recall, from the series, that Tony Soprano ultimately killed him.) Christopher therefore establishes the groundwork for a chronicle that begins before he was born.

 

Unfortunately, it quickly becomes obvious that writers Chase and Konner have laid out far more than this single two-hour film can resolve, with any degree of satisfaction. Too many sidebar events get short shrift, or no shrift at all; this overly ambitious narrative screams for the long-form episodic treatment enjoyed by the HBO series.

 

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the Italians share the stage with Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), a childhood friend of Dickie’s who now — on his behalf — oversees the numbers racket in the Central Ward, Newark’s predominantly Black neighborhood. Odom’s performance is thoughtful and multi-layered; Harold is intelligent, ambitious and angered by the circumstance of skin color that thwarts a desire for his own piece of the action.

 

Frankly, Harold deserves his own separate movie.

 

The Chase/Konner storyline takes place in two distinct acts, the first half backdropped against the Newark race riots: one of many that swept through U.S. cities during the “long, hot summer of 1967.” Immediately prior to this, the Moltisanti and Soprano families gather to welcome the arrival of aging “Hollywood Dick” Moltisanti (Ray Liotta), who has returned from Italy in the company of new young wife Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi), who speaks almost no English.

 

This union — and Hollywood Dick’s announced intention to start a second family — are greeted with a gimlet eye by Dickie, Johnny Soprano (Jon Bernthal) and older brother Junior Soprano (Corey Stoll). Such melodrama is beyond the notice of adolescent Tony Soprano (William Ludwig), who has long idolized Dickie as his favorite (honorary) “uncle,” vastly preferring his company to that of his father Johnny.

 

(In a clever bit of stunt casting, Liotta later turns up in a second uncredited role.)

 

Tony, not yet old enough to be savvy about the “family business,” has vague notions of growing up to become a college football player. Dickie, astutely sensing that the boy likely isn’t cut out for their life, encourages such plans.

 

Nivola and young Ludwig work well together; the scenes between Dickie and Tony grant this story a degree of poignancy that we know can’t last.

 

This bond becomes even more important when Johnny is arrested and sentenced to four years in prison. Control of business matters falls to Junior, with Dickie as a key lieutenant alongside enforcers — these names will be recognized from the TV series — Silvio Dante (John Magaro), Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri (Billy Magnussen) and Salvatore “Pussy” Bonpensiero (Samson Moeakiola).

 

The Newark riots, when they explode, galvanize Harold’s ambitions; recklessness overwhelms cunning and caution, and he’s soon forced to flee — for a time — to North Carolina.

 

Four years pass; another gathering of families welcomes Johnny home from prison. Tony is in high school, now played by Michael Gandolfini … who, sadly, doesn’t bring a thing to the role. Football has become more of a reality, but no kid could grow up in such an environment without some of it rubbing off; Tony and a buddy start running numbers at school.

 

Giuseppina’s presence, meanwhile, has become quite combustible. And — it must be said — it’s a bit hard to swallow this woman’s increasingly foolish, ill-advised and self-destructive behavior (although De Rossi does her best to make it credible). I mean, really; can she be so oblivious to the dangerous company she keeps?

 

All this increasingly violent melodrama aside, at this point longtime Sopranos fans will delight in characters becoming more like their older selves in the series. Magaro’s Silvio is a hoot, as he embraces the hairstyle, clothing, sloped shoulders and bemused expressions that Steven Van Zandt developed to perfection. Stoll’s Junior, forever the patient and accepting butt of cruel remarks in the 1967 segment, turns brittle, cunning and dangerous, anticipating Dominic Chianese’s waspish schemer.

 

Alexandra Intrator’s teenage Janice Soprano — Tony’s older sister — begins to develop the aimless, arrogant sense of entitlement that made Aida Turturro’s adult Janice so … damn … annoying. And, yes; we even get a fleeting glimpse of teenage Carmela De Angelis (Lauren DiMario), eventually to become Tony’s wife.

 

But the prize absolutely goes to Vera Farmiga’s performance as Tony and Janice’s judgmental, deviously manipulative mother Livia. The actress so meticulously anticipates Nancy Marchand’s series performance, that it’s positively spooky. And it’s not merely acting chops; in terms of posture, hair style, clothing and everything else, Farmiga could be mistaken for Marchand’s younger self. It’s a marvelous impersonation.

 

Farmiga’s bravura, stand-out moment comes during a conference with Tony’s high school guidance counselor, whose insightfully probing questions catch Livia by surprise, and reveal the kinder, gentler person that she once might have been … but only for a moment. 

 

The HBO series always made excellent use of period songs, and this film follows that tradition; the extremely busy soundtrack ranges from pop hits by Dionne Warwick, Frank Sinatra and Neil Diamond, to Gil Scott-Heron’s combustible “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

 

And one can but smile, when the film’s end credits unspool to Alabama 3’s “Woke Up This Morning” … and although that suggests a pivotal moment in Tony’s life, nothing in the film we’ve just watched supports it.

Which begs the obvious question: What, then, was the point?