Releasing in theatres and HBO on October 1. James Gandolfini’s son is playing young Tony. Series creator David Chase co-wrote the script with Lawrence Konner and Alan Taylor’s directing.
Ahh that’s his kid, I thought the resemblance was uncanny.
A breakdown of who’s who, from Slashfilm. Christopher’s father is the lead:
While the young Tony is all over the Many Saints trailer, Dickie is the film’s main character. “Moltisanti” actually means “Many Saints” in Italian, thus the film’s title.
Hah, didn’t catch it in the trailer but I love Billy Magnussen as Paulie.
What?
Sounds like this turned out really good. But like a lot of other folks these days, David Chase is pissed about the day-and-date release on HBO Max. This is a great, in-depth interview…
Looking forward to this, even though we’ve already had a Sopranos prequel
Wife and I watched this Fri night. It was. . .OK. I mean, we both enjoyed it, but in terms of adding anything to the show or its characters, it didn’t. The acting was fine, even Gandolfini’s son was OK playing a young Tony, and the casting of other supporting characters was a highlight in how they mimic’d the mannerisms of their roles. Silvio in particular was a stand-out.
I’m a little disappointed the movie focused so much on Christopher’s father, an unknown character that played no role in the TV series. I would’ve preferred Tony’s dad, fleshing out all those flashback scenes, showing more how and why Tony became the way he was. Would’ve been far more interesting for fans of the show IMO.
Given the mixed reviews I didn’t go in with high expectations and therefor wasn’t disappointed. As mentioned it was OK.
I didn’t mind the focus being on Dickie, since his relationship with young Tony is supposed to preface the Tony/Christofuh relationship.
As to the younger versions of the characters, I thought the best was the actor who played Uncle Jun’. Although it was a little surprising as I always had the impression in the original series that Tony, Silvio and Pussy were all about the same age, but clearly not.
Also was that Liotta playing the uncle in prison? I couldn’t find anything on the IMDB page and it sure looked/sounded like him.
I was pretty frustrated by this.
Why does young Tony go from petty crime and enjoying counterculture to running a mob and living in the suburbs? Shouldn’t Dickie dying, with no trail to follow, have done what Ray Liotta wanted and removed the bad influence? Did Dickie’s guys start inviting Tony back into the stolen goods building once their boss was gone after the credits?
I like Corey Stoll and Vera Farmiga a lot but their characters weren’t any more fleshed out than in the show. We already knew they had these intrinsic personality flaws that made them unable to lead and influence. Finding out Junior shot Dickie just emphasized familiar cowardice and didn’t add anything to the Tony-Christopher relationship from the show, other than that now I guess we will watch that one revenge killing scene and know it was a mistake.
The rise of the black criminal organizations certainly fit with the Sopranos theme of changing times, but I don’t remember anything in the Sopranos that suggests Tony was shaped by watching his ancestors accommodate and war with non-Italians. So what is it showing here other than giving the Italian characters opportunities to say the n-word, show why they own houses in the suburbs in the 90s, and allowing Leslie Odom a strong performance opportunity? I’d love to see David Chase do a whole series on that combination of race consciousness, civil rights activism and criminal opportunity, rather than squeezing it in like this in a compromised way.
(I’ve only seen about 15 Sopranos episodes. I certainly could be missing a lot of context regarding any of the above.)
Suprised there isn’t more chat about this movie. Overall, I liked it, once I realized it was more about Dickie than Tony.
I believe the point of the movie was to show how influential Dickie was on Tony, and how much Tony admird him, even though they didn’tget that point across very well. The ending was to show how the african american gansters took the blame for Dickie’s murder and led to Tony’s racisism toward black people. At least that’s what it seemed like to me.