Directed by Alan Taylor
Written by David Chase, Lawrence Konner
Starring Alessandro Nivola, Leslie Odom Jr., Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll
Rated R for terror, violence and some disturbing images
Runtime: 2 hours
In theaters and streaming HBO Max Oct. 1

by A. Freedman, Staff Writer

High on the list of things that don't need to exist–but can and should–is a prequel to The Sopranos. While The Many Saints Of Newark, written by creator David Chase and directed by veteran Alan Taylor, was planned for a long time before the pandemic, it rides a huge wave of renewed interest. Apparently every young person in America has watched the entirety of the series in the last couple of years. A generation too young to have seen it the first go around, but discovering it on their own terms as they enter young adulthood or middle age. Artists are often prophetic in their visions of society, and this generation–having come of age amidst recessions, terror attacks, and general American decline–are living in the kind of dour world that Chase warned us about at the turn of the millennium. The time is perfect to return to the world of The Sopranos. But how do you build on, or harder still–retroactively precede–a perfect show? By utilizing the very trick that burrowed the series into our heads in the first place- averting our expectations.

The Many Saints Of Newark is a breezy, sometimes even loose, portrait of the life of the DiMeo crime family during the nostalgic age of late 60's Newark, New Jersey, going well into Tony Soprano's adolescence in the mid 70's. Yet, the lead of the film is a character we never met on the show: Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Dickie is the father of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli), Tony's "nephew" and the man he tapped to run the family one day (before he suffocated him to death in one of the show's last episodes). Dickie was referred to at points during the series, and the void he left in Christopher's life was large enough to be its own character. The Many Saints Of Newark concerns itself primarily with showing us the parallels between Dickie's relationship with Tony and our memories of Tony's relationship with Christopher. We see how the violent burdens of expectation and toxic masculinity are passed down and repeated from generation to generation, always creating men who feel rejected, unfulfilled, and angry at a shapeless void that haunts them.

The best sequels and prequels find ways to expand the universe of the show, often deconstructing the source material and commenting on it in a way that suggests critique and self awareness. Often times, die hard fans get up in arms and find works like The Last Jedi or Blade Runner 2049 to be alienating and disappointing. Yet those are films that not only want to go somewhere new, but they want you to ask what drew you there so hard in the first place. They want you to ask what might need to grow and change about this part of you.

The Many Saints Of Newark takes a similar detour. In an eye-opening first half, the film goes a long way towards rehabilitating some of the show's lazier depictions of African American life. We knew that the Sopranos were quite racist, but sometimes it seemed like the show might have been in on it with them. Lamar Odom Jr. plays another new character, Harold McBrayer, someone who has no link to the show. McBrayer is old friends with Dickie, but over the course of the civil unrest of the Newark riots, which destroyed much of the city and ultimately sent Italian-Americans like the Sopranos packing to the exurbs, McBrayer starts to see the role of indentured servitude he has been led to fill for Dickie in a harsher light. These early scenes are some of the movie’s best, and McBrayer quickly becomes the most well-sketched African American character in the whole world of The Sopranos. It was always Chase's interest to return to the world of Tony's childhood, if he ever made a Sopranos-related film- I wonder if this is something of a repair on his part. The fact that it happens to line up so perfectly with the George Floyd protests of last summer is another fascinating rhyme of the film.

We eventually meet the teenage Tony Soprano in the form of James Gandolfini's son, Michael. By the time we do, we are deeply familiar with the world he was born into and raised in. Perhaps at this time, it's not a question of how he will "become" Tony Soprano, he already is. It's more of a question of "when."

Along with Nivola, another show stealer is Ray Liotta. The now late-in-his-years Italian-American actor, still best known for playing Henry Hill in Goodfellas (a movie that The Sopranos is more than a little indebted to), does an understated performance unlike anything we have ever seen from him. Originally tapped by Chase to play Ralph Cipharetto (before Joe Pantoliano took it), he is a natural fit for this world. His scenes with Dickie are some of the film's best and funniest, unexpectedly mirroring some of the show's scenes between Tony and his therapist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco).

Everywhere you look in The Many Saints Of Newark, there are mirrors, doubles and parallels to the show we know so well. Fan service comes here and there, and the deep cast of actors who play the young versions of our favorite characters thankfully don't spend much time on-screen. It's not that they don't do a good job, it's just that we are already so familiar with them, what more is there to know? There is also nothing that happens in the film that fundamentally changes how you watch the show. What you come away with is the sense that all of this has happened before…and it will happen again.