It's hard for me to see Sylvester Stallone as much of anything beyond Rocky Balboa or John Rambo. The Expendables while new, was really just an extension of Rambo so it's the same character. I know he's done a couple of other movies (Cliffhanger and Dredd) and had some interesting cameos in different films like Spy Kids and Guardians, but he's pretty firmly established as Balboa or Rambo for all time.
Now at age 76 he's trying to reinvent himself as a tarnished New York gangster, imprisoned for a quarter century. Exiled to Tulsa by his crew after his release he has a hard time leaving his past life behind and quickly returns to his criminal ways.
The Paramount+ series (just renewed for a second season) was created by the same guy who brought Yellowstone to the screen (Taylor Sheridan) and has featured Sopranos veteran Terence Winter as a writer. You can definitely see elements of Sopranos throughout.
You should have seen a similar story before. I told you to watch it. There's an amusing series called Lillyhammer where the Steve Van Zandt plays a version of Silvio who's banished by the mob to Norway, where he slides right back into his criminally-enterprising ways. This is different but kind of the same.
Once you get past the intrigue of seeing Stallone as a mobster the story is kind of thin. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it and will continue watching, but it isn't in the same stratosphere as Sopranos (what is?) and there is some really lazy writing going on.
Stallone looks like he's in constant pain. The arthritic way he moves, the plodding walk, a difficulty turning his head, battered hands, the remnants of cosmetic surgery on his face... it's hard to see the athletic Rocky he used to be. But that's been coming for a while. He has a hard time exuding the level of menace needed to carry off the role. A lot of it is, I think, because his face is frozen due to the surgeries it's been subjected to and it makes expression difficult to carry off. He can't smile, he can barely frown, not enough of his face moves to convey legitimate emotion. He has to do it all with his eyes. He's not bad, though, I just wish we could have seen this character when he was 56 instead of 76 (same with The Samaritan).
Beyond Stallone, the rest of the cast is really weak. The chick playing the FBI agent (Andrea Savage) looks pretty good to be 50 but her character is really bad. Phony lines, abandoning her career ethics after crawling into bed with Stallone on a whim. Nah... I'd do her, but that's about it.
That's a big part of the problem. The story is full of caricatures, not fully fleshed out characters with believable story arcs. Benny from Sopranos as a former mobster in hiding as a cowboy, a badly aged Dana Delaney as a horse farm owner, a puffy and aged Gloria Trillo also from Sopranos, Martin Starr (the satanist coder from Silicon Valley) as a weed-store owner, Stallone's hot daughter as a waitress-turned-horse-owner, and the pillow-boobed-big-lipped-giant-grill girl from the New Day USA re-fi commercials (who's oddly hot to me) make up most of the cast. All of them are really just partially sketched.
The worst is Domenick Lombardozzi as the wig-wearing, overly ambitious heir to Stallone's mob crew currently run by his dying father. Lombardozzi is absolute ass in everything he's ever been in and this is no improvement. He's a half-baked turd. He was the worst part of The Wire, ruined Breakout Kings and was fetid shit in Boardwalk Empire. I have no idea how this un-talented sack of monkey guts continues to get parts. If the show falters, it will be his worthless ass that drags it down.
The show still has a great deal of untapped promise. Even with all its flaws, even with the cliched setups, even with the weak characters it’s better than a lot of what’s out there. Better than everything on network TV.
I just hope it can tighten up the story and breathe some actual life into the supporting characters. Start with the FBI bitch - rein her in and have her behave like an actual police officer not a teenage drama queen.
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