THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK

To begin with, I was against this project initially when I first heard about it. THE SOPRANOS is sacred territory as far as I'm concerned and I was afraid HBO was trying to unnecessarily return to a franchise in order to turn out another mediocre film, hoping the title alone would sell itself. Fortunately, after watching this, my fears were put to rest as this was a very beautiful and respectful prequel to THE SOPRANOS story. The trailer leads to you to believe this is a coming of age story of a young Tony Soprano. And while that is true, that part of the story doesn't take shape until the second half. The first half deals with his Uncle, Dickie Moltisanti, and his relationship with his father, step-mother, and business associates (some Italian and others African-American). It was awesome going back in time to see younger versions of Paulie, Livia, Silvio, and Uncle Junior amongst others. Every actor who stepped into those shoes did a great job at capturing the essence of the character from the show. However, the standout for me was Vera Farmiga as Livia as you can definitely tell why Tony wound up in therapy all those years later, she's wonderful! As is Michael Gandolfini as a young Tony. He's great as a teenager of the character his father made famous and I even hear whispers the cast and crew would be up for a sequel if HBO decided to move ahead with one. I would absolutely be up for it! 8/10