The story of young Anthony

One of the unsolved riddles about David Chase’s HBO series “The Sopranos” is how New Jersey, the doormat of New York City on the other bank of the Hudson River, became the home of the DiMeo empire. The working-class local color with auto repair shops, strip clubs and faceless shopping centers has decisively shaped the unglamorous image of this mafia tale, in which overweight men in unfavorable training suits do contract killings and the Don camouflages his dirty business with the serious facade of the municipal garbage disposal.

Tony Soprano was one of the pillars of society, even if the Federal Police were in his front yard from time to time. In this creeping suburbanization, the models of the organized around Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese) were as fictional as they were (from “The Godfather” to “Goodfellas”) – hardly recognizable. The Sopranos embodied the average American family, only with a few corpses in the basement.

Sopranos fans can rest assured. Alan Taylor’s prequel “The Many Saints of Newark” does not scratch the myth of the series. Showrunner David Chase elevated the six seasons of “The Sopranos” to the gold standard of serial storytelling between 1999 and 2007; a single movie can only add a few new facets to the story. Fortunately, Taylor, who directed the show, doesn’t even want to:

“The Many Saints of Newark” tells neither origin story by Tony Soprano another immigrant story like “The Godfather 2”. The soprano brothers Junior and Johnny Boy (Tony’s father) and Dickie “Hollywood” Moltisanti already divided New Jersey among themselves at the end of the sixties, and minor territorial disputes with black street gangs are resolutely resolved.

On the sidelines of history

“The Many Saints of Newark” approaches the Sopranos epic from the sidelines. Tony’s favorite and problem nephew Christopher Moltisanti, who dies in the sixth season in a memorable scene at the hand of his uncle, acts as the narrator – from the grave, so to speak. Politically, New Jersey was also on the sidelines of history in the 1960s, with the civil rights movement arriving there with a slight delay.

The real riots in the city of Newark in July 1967, after two police officers beat a black taxi driver to hospital maturity, set the tone for the central conflict that young Anthony (as a teenager of James Gandolfinis
Son Michael played) at first only observed from a distance. Inspired by the Black Panthers, Harold (Leslie Odom Jr.), the former henchman of the aspiring Dickie Moltisanti Jr. (Alessandro Nivola), sets up his own organization with the support of the legendary gangster Frank Lucas. Soon, not only are the National Guard tanks rolling through the streets of Newark, the gang war also claims casualties.

“The Many Saints of Newark”, an allusion to the Moltisanti family name, is most likely a coming-of-age story. Johnny Boy Soprano (Jon Bernthal) spends a large part of Tony’s childhood in prison, his “uncle” Dickie (the prequel does not explain the exact family relationships sufficiently) takes on the role of surrogate father. Torn between small rip-offs – the kids steal an ice cream truck and give away their booty to the kids in the neighborhood – and a possible football career, Tony lacks a reliable male role model.

Deconstructing popular culture mafia myths

Mother Livia (Vera Farmiga) is already suffering from depression. Seventies Newark is not a good place for female empowerment. This also applies to Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi), the Dickie Senior (Ray Liotta) as his second wife
brings to America. Freshly arrived, the Italian bride immediately decides in favor of the son, but does not penetrate the machismo either.

With “The Many Saints of Newark”, Chase and Taylor set up a course on which small revisionist volts are built in between familiar anecdotes and figures (Samson Moeakiola and John Magaro as the younger incarnations of Pussy Bonpensero and Silvio Dante). Not enough to alienate Sopranos fans, but enough to justify this prequel the world hasn’t necessarily been waiting for. The playful deconstruction of the popular culture mafia myths that the series still pursued gives way to grim, pale-lit realism in “The Many Saints of Newark”.

This completely unnostalgic staging is exaggerated by Michael Gandolfini, whose resemblance to his father, who died in 2013, is touching. Anthony does not yet exude the physical dominance of the late Tony Soprano, the 22-year-old looks almost awkward in his massive body. “The Many Saints of Newark” will not continue the Sopranos story. But at least it is a worthy memoriam. (From Thursday in the cinemas)