I truly enjoyed The Many Saints of Newark. To be fair, I was confused for the first 15 minutes, wishing they all had name tags, but David Chase and Lawrence Konner (with direction by Alan Taylor) had to paint with broad strokes in order to fit in the whole family. So I get it. And once all established, the film moves along nicely with the right amount of dialogue vs. gunfire. And yet 48 hours later, I realize it was just a movie, nothing cinematic about it, save for the beach scene and cool music leading up to the beach.
I’ve known since The Act of Self-Defense that Alessandro Nivola deserved a major role, so good on ya for choosing him. and bless my soul, Michael Gandolfini CAN act! Ray Liotta continues his God-like status in my book (though here I fault the writers, ok Ray played brothers….but how about more of a heads up, so I wasn’t confused). Vera Farmiga, recently reduced to stupid horror flicks, finally gets a chance to shine again as a real actress. And Michela De Rossi was totally believable as the cumadre. And while I like Leslie Odom Jr., I need to see more stretch which isn’t his fault as much as it is the characters he portrays.
