The Many Saints of Newark: An Inevitable

Letdown
★★☆☆☆

by Roel Cahill-Rosqueta April 20, 2022

The main cast of 'The Many Saints of Newark'

Alan Taylor’s The Many Saints of Newark is packed full of pointless references, weird
inconsistencies, and most of all, an impressive lack of likeable characters The majority
of the cast, at best, deliver uninspired performances. At worst, they appear to be playing
absurd caricatures of the mobsters in the famed television series. Despite being a
prequel of The Sopranos, this new installment will be more enjoyable for those who
have never seen the series.

Ultimately, The Many Saints of Newark fails to show the two-sided ethical nature of
character that make crime-dramas entertaining. The film is made for nobody. Fans of
the series will resent it for its bold yet illogical implications. Newcomers will be
disappointed by the hollow characters and inconsistent quality of acting.
Alan Taylor is an accomplished director with experience in both film and television. This
moody, violent drama certainly has elements of his past work (see Mad Men, Boardwalk
Empire). The Many Saints of Newark feels limited by the short runtime of a movie.
Taylor creates an intriguing world and would have been able to explore the characters
more thoroughly as a mini-series.

Set in the late 60s and early 70s, the film takes place about thirty years before the events
of The Sopranos. The story centers around the charming Dickie Moltisanti, played by
Alessandro Nivola. The talented Ray Liotta also delivers an outstanding performance as
Dickie’s uncle, Aldo. The real buzz around the cast, however, centered around Michael
Gandolfini. The 22-year-old son of the late James Gandolfini stars as a young Tony
Soprano and delivers a performance worthy of his dad’s iconic character. Unfortunately,
the rest of the cast left a lot to be desired.

The film opens with narration from Chris Moltisanti, son of the protagonist Dickie.
Chris speaks to the audience from beyond the grave, and revels that Tony Soprano was
the one who murdered him.

This fact is dropped on the audience like an anvil, two minutes into the movie, by a
character who isn’t even born yet. The use of Chris’s character doesn’t serve a purpose.
Seemingly, the directors thought, “How can we include Michael Imperioli”, and landed
on the only plausible way: As a narrator from the future.

In The Sopranos, Silvio appears to be around the same age as Tony. For whatever
reason, this version of Silvio seems to be closer to Dickie’s age. While imitating Steven
Van Zandt’s unique expression and mannerisms is a difficult task, John Magaro’s
exaggerated frown and forced delivery are hilariously bad. His performance is like
watching someone do a bad Silvio impression in front of their friends. Billy Magnussen’s
Paulie also suffered from overacting. His excessive hand movements totally broke my
immersion. I just could not take him or Silvio seriously.

Alessandro Nivola delivers a fine performance as Dickie, who’s flaws were more so in the
writing. Dickie is meant to be a Sopranos-style antihero. The problem is that we are only
shown the bad in him. The parts of the movie meant to evoke sympathy are either not
present, or not successful. A crime-drama just isn’t captivating when the protagonist
comes across as an impulsive, smug, immoral jerk, and not much more.
Early in the movie, Dickie murders his own father after finding out he assaulted his wife,
Giuseppina. This scene was extremely jarring and abrupt because these characters had
hardly been introduced. Giuseppina, who then becomes Dickie’s love interest, ends up
feeling more like a hollow plot device than a living character. Her role is to create
conflict for Dickie, and she doesn’t have an interesting arc of her own.

Dickie then begins to visit his uncle Aldo in prison, looking to support him, along with
commit other “good deeds”. The problem is, Dickie is clearly just trying to rationalize his
immoral acts to himself. His desire to do good comes across as a narcissistic, selfish
justification for his guilty conscious. He is rarely shown to deserve the viewer’s
sympathy and fails to be a satisfying antihero.

In the end, Juniors hit on Dickie doesn’t really make sense either. While Junior clearly
views him more as a threat than a friend, murdering someone out of nothing more than
envy and embarrassment doesn’t feel realistic. This “big reveal”, which has huge
implications for the TV series, felt extremely underwhelming. By the time Dickie is
murdered, I didn’t feel a thing, because I wasn’t attached to him as a character.

Both Dickie’s and his father’s murder feel random and unrealistically drastic, because
there is not a plausible reason for either of them to be killed in the manner they were.

A rare highlight from the movie is Michael Gandolfini, who is very convincing as a young
Tony Soprano. More time should have been spent on Tony. The movie depicted an
interesting dilemma of him choosing between the crime world and the normal world.
This dilemma just wasn’t explored fully because of the focus on Dickie, Giuseppina, and
Harold.

The Many Saints of Newark received mixed critical reception. Variety called the movie
a “lively and convincing origin story, until it comes to showing us how Tony became
Tony”. Despite taking issue with the underdeveloped arc of Tony Soprano, it praised the
movie as a standalone piece.
One of the more negative reviews came from Roger Ebert, which described the Many
Saints of Newark as “upsetting” yet “cartoonish”. The review took issue with the twist
ending, saying it “merely slows to crawl and comes to an unimpressive halt”.

If you are a fan of The Sopranos, it is worth watching The Many Saints of Newark for
the nostalgia alone. Just realize that much of what made the TV series great is not
present.

Otherwise, you will have a better time watching another of the many crime-drama
movies in circulation. El Camino, an adaptation of Breaking Bad, will satisfy that
craving for a gritty, violent, crime story. Vince Gilligan did a much better job of reviving
his acclaimed TV series.

While there are undeniably redeeming qualities, the idea of a “Sopranos movie” was
doomed from the moment it was pitched. Ultimately, The Many Saints of Newark is
incomparable to the series it pays tribute to.
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