Alan Taylor and David Chase's The Many Saints of Newark isn't an origin story for Anthony Soprano, the most legendary mob boss this side of Michael Corleone. It's a Dickie Moltisanti biography that concentrates on themes of violence, impotence, race, familial pride, and the intolerable grief that acts as the engine for life-long decisions and inherent tendencies. It's a dimly-lit highlight over the Soprano family in their alleged golden years of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The most shocking aspect of the film is that Many Saints features almost as much Corrado "Junior" Soprano (Corey Stoll) reservedly complaining about his status amongst the family screen-time as it does Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini) bullying his way through high school while trying to become a varsity athlete.
There's hardly any exploration of Tony and Junior's relationship, which defined the series for so many years, and it's much more concentrated on Tony's infatuation with his uncle Dickie who becomes the acting boss of the family after his father 'Hollywood Dick' Moltisanti (Ray Liotta) dies. All while Tony's father, Johnny Soprano (Jon Bernthal) is tucked away in a jail cell. It's almost unfair to compare this movie to the greatest television series of all-time, but that was the responsibility it was assigned when David Chase decided to pen the script. The Sopranos had the privilege, as well as the impending doom, of being able to rely on 182 hours to tell its decade-spanning story.
Many Saints clocks in at only two hours and relays the five-year story of Tony's maturation from a pudgy middle schooler to a stocky high schooler eager to join the family business, Dickie's countless betrayals, Johnny Soprano's brief imprisonment, and Livia's reluctance to seek help. It also features sacrilegious impressions of Silvio Dante (John Magaro) and Paulie Gualtieri (Billy Magnussen). It should also be mentioned that this family's blatant racism is the root of a lot of their evils, in part with an overwhelming amount of selfishness and rugged upbringings which drove them towards this oft-luxurious lifestyle.
The highlights of the movie come on the behalf of its performers. Vera Farmiga perfectly encapsulated the gross negligence and inability to communicate of Livia Soprano. Leslie Odom Jr.'s Harold McBrayer has an intoxicating drive and equally mob-oriented mentality reminiscent of his Italian-American counterparts, as well as a soft charm that felt underutilized. Michael Gandolfini thrived during his on-screen time, filling in the shoes of his late father's legendary role as Tony. Alessandro Nivola demonstrated a compelling range of emotions as Dickie Moltisanti. And Jon Bernthal breathed life into a stubborn Johnny Soprano who refused to acclimate himself with the ever-evolving 1970s.
Critical plot points are revealed throughout the film, which naturally adjusts the way we look at certain aspects of the series and its unforgettable characters, but it also makes this installment canonized in The Sopranos bible. However, the movie simply failed to meet the otherworldly heights it was aligned with. That doesn't make Many Saints a failure, by any means. It's still worth your time if you, too, are a self-proclaimed Sopranosologist, but don't let the relationship you have with the television series lift your hopes too high for this film.
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