The Strange Review: The Many Saints Of Newark

Prequels are a strange animal...for starters prequels are very rarely necessary and are often pointless and at worst story breaking. Prequels have to walk a fine of being their own story while not piggybacking on the story that came before. For these reasons, alone prequels are for me a no-go because something somewhere gets contradicted and essentially ruins it for me. The most infamous prequel is of course The Star Wars Prequels (which are now enjoying life as memes), but since then the term "prequel" has been a dirty word. For something as massive as "Star Wars" and to watch their prequels tank and tank hard, I could only imagine what would happen with one of the greatest TV shows ever written (yes it is, fight me). David Chase originally conceived "The Sopranos" as a movie as film was his main medium of choice, he had no interest in doing a TV show, and now we have a Soprano film: "The Many Saints Of Newark".

"The Many Saints Of Newark," tells the story of "Gentlemen Dickie" Richard Moltisanti, the father of Tony's cousin and dog-sitter-oner Christopher Moltisanti. However, before we talk about the movie proper (and this is not a spoiler since he's in the trailer) let's talk about the hairpiece in the room and what's basically keeping me from enjoying this movie entirely and that my paisans is Silvio Dante. By all accounts, Silvio Dante should not be in this movie, or rather he shouldn't in the mafia. If memory serves correctly (and it does) in the infamous Card Game story, Ralphie stated that THEY (Himself, Jackie, Silvio and Tony) were a small crew, selling pot and making small scores UNTIL Jackie decided that they'd rob Michelle "Feech" LaManna's card game. After the robbery, Richie Aprile stood up for the group and brokered a sit-down in which some of the right people got their money back. After that Tony and the others were rising stars and had to be respected and were on the fast track to being made with the exception of Ralphie who unfortunately caught the clap from some hippie.

Citation: Season 03 Episode 12: Amour Fou

Now, one could accuse Ralphie of lying BUT Feech confirms this story later on with Silvio stating that Feech isn't interested in telling that story. This story is VERY important and basically breaks "The Many Saints Of Newark" because Tony is a child and Silvio is somewhere in his early 20s (he wouldn't be a teenager) and he's already a member of the mafia. According to Ralphie's story, however, he and the others were "non-existent" according to the mafia, they were nobodies. How exactly is Silvio already in the mafia if it was the card game robbery he did with Tony that put him on the map? Did he do the robbery with Tony when he was a baby? I'm being silly, but seriously, Silvio being in this movie MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL! Furthermore, the actor playing Silvio was the worst thing in this movie, guy was trying way too hard. Billy Magnussen does a great job as Young Paulie, showing a more dapper side to Paulie before he's older and set in his ways. Young Pussy was great, had the swagger, and even sounded like him too. But Young Silvio, he sounded like Joe Pesci inhaled some helium.

Citation Season 05 Episode 04: All Happy Families

Anyway, getting back on point, if Silvio is already in the mafia when Tony is a child then that means that Silvio fell out of favor with the mafia and then got in league with Tony, Jackie, and Ralph, however, why would a grown man (Silvio's in at least his 20s at the start of the movie) fall in with a group of people who would barely be 20? I always operated under the assumption that Silvio and Tony grew up together and were roughly the same age (give or take a year or two) but if Tony is 8 years old (how old he was at the start of the film) and Silvio is at least in his 20s, that means at the start of the series Silvio would be 52, but he's not! According to Sopranos history, Silvio is 42 at the start of the series thus making him 2 years older than Tony. So as a writer and a "Sopranos" aficionado I cannot accept Silvio's presence in the film simply because this would make "The Sopranos" a time travel show and well...while there are minute mystical moments in "The Sopranos", it never goes that far. Far easier to simply reject something added years after the fact, EVEN IF this is canon (written by the creator himself) it openly contradicts established canon, and therefore on these grounds I reject this movie. That being said, let's talk about the movie proper. Was the movie good? Well, aside from the MASSIVE continuity error that is Silvio Dante (The Human Paradox), the film did what I believe all good prequels should do, and that's basically add flavor text to established material, something that can be viewed but ignored that doesn't disrupt the established order. In those terms, it's fine, it captures "The Sopranos" flavor while still being its own thing, it doesn't lean on nostalgia (although there are some disappointments which we'll get into in the spoiler section). 

All in all the movie is fine but it will raise some eyebrows and in classic "Sopranos" fashion the ending "subverts expectations" and we all know that's code for some people will love it, some will hate it. I personally don't like the ending for reasons that I'll get into via the spoiler section. Without Silvio and the ending, the film is simply fine, it feels like an extended episode of "The Sopranos" but with so much ignoring of Sopranos continuity, I can't help but feel "Eh." about the film. I say it's fine because Dickie carries the film and you feel like he is a separated character from Christopher but you can see how and why he's so revered by Tony and if that's what the film set out to accomplish, then yes, it's fine. Final verdict, would I recommend "The Many Saints Of Newark"? Not really. If you're a "Sopranos" fan you wouldn't be able to ignore Silvio's presence and that'll torpedo the whole film for you. I will say the acting is great, everyone (except for Silvio) hits their marks as being who they're supposed to be while adding their own flavor to the character. Let's get into spoilers.

So let's talk about some of the performances, namely Corey Stoll as Junior. Aside from saying "Sister's cunt" and stating that Tony never had the makings of a varsity athlete, he didn't do much of anything as Junior which is disappointing because Corey Stoll has an incredible amount of range as an actor and could have added layers of dimension to Junior we hadn't seen in the series. Corey Stoll isn't a bad-looking guy and seeing Junior as a young buck would certainly be a sight from the ornery old man we see in the series proper. Furthermore, Junior doesn't get much interaction with Johnny Boy Sopranos and it'd have been nice to see them play off each other. But let's talk about the glasses in the room and that's Junior Soprano being responsible for the murder of Dickie Moltisanti simply because the man laughed at him falling. Now no one is denying that Junior is petty but Junior is also very cunning and very smart. His intelligence is captured in Season 2 when he and Richie plan to eliminate Tony however after Richie fails to capture the respect of The Capos,  Junior ultimately decides that he's better off with Tony. This was a smart move in Junior's case as Richie would've made a horrible boss and wouldn't have taken care of Junior the way Tony did. If Junior was petty he'd had Tony and Richie clipped in a way that wouldn't implicate him.

So Junior has Dickie killed, he couldn't have just thrown him a beating? Maybe a mock execution (thus drawing a parallel between him and his son). No, Junior is the mastermind behind Dickie's death and we're all just supposed to accept that this is what happened? No, no thank you. Kudos to David Chase for keeping the killer ambiguous because we're lead to believe that Barry Haydu is the one who pulled the trigger on Dickie and to this day I do believe Chrissy killed the right guy. That being said having Chrissy narrate the film was a nice touch, adds a bit of that Sopranos mysticism without going too overboard with it. Not that the film needed a narrator but it did add a little "Goodfellas" vibe to it. Dickie is a great character and I can see why Tony looked up to him, he was charming, jovial but he took care of business ruthlessly. His rivalry with Harold I wish was explored more, and here is what I mean by "subverted expectations", in the war between Harold and Dickie I'd think that Harold would possibly pay off a cop to clip Dickie, now granted it'd be hard for a Black man in that time period to speak to a cop but there were some cops on the take and they'd take Colored money too.

But ultimately nothing comes of Harold and Dickie's rivalry and Harold got to bone Dickie's woman. Ultimately the movie didn't have much of a plot since the build-up to Dickie's rivalry wasn't the finale. If they were going to have the reveal that Junior mastermind the whole thing they could've resolved the Dickie and Harold story with Dickie claiming victory only to come home and get popped later, and instead of Junior getting a phone call he could've simply handed someone an envelope and said "Good job.". The whole thing now just seems like a waste of a story because for as much as Tony idolized Dickie they didn't interact much and I was thinking Dickie was around in Tony's formative years as a young mafioso, at least that's the impression I got. Long story short, this movie could've gone a number of ways that would've been good for Sopranos lore and all they'd have to do is make a few changes, instead of Silvio make that character Richie Aprile (who would've been old enough to be involved in the mafia enough to broker a sit-down between a 20 something Tony and his kid brother). Show The card game takedown, conclude the Dickie and Harold rivalry, and for crying out loud can we get Paulie tripping on acid and Uncle June shooting laser beams out his eyes!? And as much as I love Ray Liotta, he should've been Feech LaManna, and if Dickie stood up for Tony during the takedown that'd have gone a long way to making Feech not too fond of Dickie. After all, Feech stated that Tony should've been dead because of the card game, so...it wouldn't be too far off the mark if Feech had Dickie clipped just to save face (at least to himself).

Like this guy wouldn't be petty enough to have someone clipped for robbing his card game.

Once again this is a prequel that shouldn't have happened simply because it violated a major rule and retconned something that didn't need to be retconned and violated continuity. I said the movie is fine and it is but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth because for all the potential it had it crashed and burned. The performances save for Corey Stoll and John Magaro were excellent and the soundtrack and everything else is stellar but the story isn't there and without a story, you just have well...nothing. Anyway, that'll do it for me. Catch you lot later!