REVIEW: The Many Saints of Newark.

In The Many Saints of Newark, we see the mob boss on whom Tony modeled himself—his uncle, Dickie Moltisanti (“many saints”)—behave in much the same fashion. But for some odd reason, the movie’s creative team—Chase, his cowriter Lawrence Konner, and director Alan Taylor—seem to want us to excuse Dickie’s behavior. Dickie stumbles into his evil and is torn up about it, as though that makes a difference. What’s more, they cast Alessandro Nivola in the part, and while Nivola is a fine actor, he comes across as a matinee idol who wandered in from another kind of picture entirely.

Everything that’s good about The Many Saints of Newark has little to do with the story, plot, or themes. It looks like a million bucks. The set design, costumes, and rendering of late-1960s/early-1970s New Jersey are all sumptuous and seductive. Many Saints is a beautiful thing to look at, which is something The Sopranos never was—it was far too exact about the sociological details of the dull suburban lives Tony and his confrères were living to glamorize or beautify them. The Many Saints of Newark makes you wish you could live in Newark for a while, which, trust me, you didn’t even then.

One of John Lindsay’s reelection commercials in 1969 was basically, “Sure, I really screwed up, but vote for me anyhow — at least I didn’t transform Fun City into Newark!”