The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
Young Anthony Soprano is growing up in one of the most tumultuous eras in Newark, N.J., history, becoming a man just as rival gangsters start to rise up and challenge the all-powerful DiMeo crime family. Caught up in the changing times is the uncle he idolizes, Dickie Moltisanti, whose influence over his nephew will help shape the impressionable teenager into the all-powerful mob boss, Tony Soprano.
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However, the cinematography is obviously digital and some of the CGI is pretty shaky—the look is quite a let-down when compared to visual mafia masterpieces like The Godfather or Goodfellas (then again, The Sopranos was always meant to look more mundane).
And in abandoning the tube for the big screen, the movie had to compete with Mafia classics such as “Goodfellas” and “The Godfather.”
(There was a guy in a Members Only jacket who went into the bathroom behind Tony, and might have retrieved a weapon a la Michael Corleone in The Godfather .)
Pundits have long debated the infamous cut-to-black, though it’s insinuated that Tony is killed by the Man in the Members Only Jacket who retrieves a gun from the bathroom like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” (1972).
Much of The Many Saints of Newark calls on other mob films like Goodfellas and even a little bit of The Godfather , but it also quietly continues the deconstruction that takes place throughout The Sopranos .
It’s the type of epic family tragedy that informs The Godfather movies: Christopher Moltisanti is only a baby here, but his dad, in his inability to keep young Tony from the life, has an invisible hand in killing his son, too.
“The Many Saints of Newark” works as a prequel in the way David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” worked as a prequel: introducing more questions than it answers and doubling back on familiar terrain to riff on themes that fascinate the filmmakers far more than conventional resolutions.
Like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me or The End of Evangelion , this film is so deeply immersed in the dense mythology and self-contained symbolism of its epochal TV predecessor that to assess it as a stand-alone story on its own terms would be a meaningless endeavor.
While this quote is meant to specifically reference Michael Corleone’s circumstances in The Godfather: Part III , it’s also illustrative of the invisible forces within the organized crime world.
They still glamourise their own mobster existence through the lens of film culture (instead of quoting Al Pacino, they watch Humphrey Bogart and Edward G Robinson in 1948’s Key Largo ).
Tony watches Key Largo on TV and quotes the Stones; he rings up “uncle” Dickie to buy beer for him and his pals, including Teen Carmela.
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Many Saints sets out to be a sprawling, decades-spanning mob epic in the vein of Goodfellas or The Irishman (very Scorsesesque), nominally focusing on the figure of Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola).
However, the cinematography is obviously digital and some of the CGI is pretty shaky—the look is quite a let-down when compared to visual mafia masterpieces like The Godfather or Goodfellas (then again, The Sopranos was always meant to look more mundane).
While it’s hard not to make comparisons to Goodfellas , one of the greatest mob movies of all time, this is far from a carbon copy.
That nod to an absolute stunner of a scene in the “Kennedy and Heidi” episode of season six encapsulates the odds against The Many Saints of Newark ever being much more than Goodfellas Lite.
Every Sunday night, we watched an episode worthy of comparison to the Martin Scorsese of “GoodFellas,” but we also got to hang with Tony and his crew: the bad-boy sociopath protégé Christopher, Paulie Walnuts with his psycho Yogi Berra one-liners, Sil with his aggro hunchback squint, and the rest.
Casting Ray Liotta ( GoodFellas ) as the elder statesman of the clan seems like a no-brainer and he doesn't disappoint playing both "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti and his twin brother, Sal.
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.
Like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me or The End of Evangelion , this film is so deeply immersed in the dense mythology and self-contained symbolism of its epochal TV predecessor that to assess it as a stand-alone story on its own terms would be a meaningless endeavor.
Directed by a series veteran in Taylor, The Many Saints of Newark is more Mean Streets than Godfather .
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Flashing forward into the early '70s, when "Dirty Harry" is recommended viewing, the narrative finds Dickie beset at work and home, Tony struggling with high school and Johnny Boy out of prison, which only adds fuel to the already-combustible family dynamics.
Sure, I got a chuckle watching Green Book Oscar-winner Nick Vallelonga popping up as a younger version of his father Tony Lip, who played gang boss Carmine on the original series.