The Many Saints of Newark

 

Alan Taylor's The Many Saints of Newark assumes a familiarity with the world of organized crime David Chase created so convincingly in The Sopranos, which ran for six seasons on HBO. Fans will nod knowingly at Vera Farmiga's battle-axe of a Livia Soprano and John Magaro's hunched and bouffanted Silvia Dante and, of course, Michael Gandolfini (the late James Gandolfini's son) as the diffident miscreant teen-aged Tony Soprano, the mobster-in-waiting.

The brutality and treachery ring true and authentic but the film's backdrop of the urban riots of the late '60s feels less so. Expanding the mobster universe to include black folks trying to get a piece of whitey's action lacks a full-bodied treatment, and feels like a diversity and inclusion gesture that might be read by some as commendable and by others as opportunistic. Coupling lawlessness with black consciousness is also problematic.

Still, A-gamer Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami) delivers a fine performance as Harold McBrayer, a bag man for Dickie Moltisanti (screen-idol handsome Alessandro Nivola), who becomes leader of his family's enterprises after his rage-fueled murder of his tyrannical father, played by Ray Liotta. That young Tony Soprano idolizes his handsome and successful uncle is of little concern to anyone except Dickie's imprisoned / jazz-loving / Buddha-quoting uncle Salvatore, also played by Liotta.

That McBrayer and Moltisanti would turn on each other was inevitable but the animus between the upstart black gangster and his former associate is scrubbed of racial invectives, which struck me as odd. Even when the Sicilians are alone in their lair, their conversation is blessedly free of slurs. Most instances of the n-word being used are among the black characters when they're referring to themselves. Dickie uses it to refer to McBrayer after his mistress tells him she'd had sex with the black man, a stale and predictable trope.