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Pug
The Movie Geek
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Joined: 21 Aug 2003
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 Posted: 01/26/04 - 17:35 Post subject: DVD Review: The Sopranos - Season 1 (1999)
After all of the hype, all of the awards, and four seasons being released on DVD, I finally began watching “The Sopranos”. From the first episode, I was hooked. It was nothing like what I expected, but it is an excellent show. “The Sopranos” is a television show about Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a mid-level mafia boss, and his family. As a fan of “The Godfather” and other mafia movies, I thought I had an idea of what to expect, but “The Sopranos” takes the mafia concept in a different direction. One way to get an idea of what “The Sopranos” is about is simply to take “The Godfather”, push it forward 50 years into the present, and reduce the scale of Michael Corleone ‘s mafia authority. You would get something that is not too far removed from “The Sopranos”.
Tony Soprano is the acting chief of the Soprano crime family while the real head, Jackie, is in the hospital with Cancer. The Sopranos are successful, though somewhat small time. They are a local New Jersey crime family, though not without a fair share of power and authority. While Tony has all of this power, he also has the struggle of balancing his life of crime with his family life, and he is being torn into an emotional mess because of it. Despite the expectations upon him, Tony secretly begins seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). While Tony does not go into detail about his criminal life, Dr. Melfi knows exactly who he is but as long as she does not hear any details about criminal doings, she is not bound to report anything to the authorities. It is with this understanding that the therapy begins and this is a major part of the show (and in my mind, it is one of the best parts of the show). Tony talks about his family, and in this way we learn more about his relationship with his wife, Carmella (Edie Falco) and his mother Livia (Nancy Marchand). His mother is an extremely manipulative woman and as much as I dislike the character, Livia is a very effective character and is a major power in the show because of her manipulativeness.
With all this talk about Tony’s family and therapy, make no mistake, there is a crime family to be run and Tony runs it. The mafia relationships start to get a bit more complex as the season moves on and characters are added and subtracted from the mix, but this is what makes the show so interesting. It isn’t the violence, but the relationships between the characters (family and mafia, alike).
“The Sopranos” is an excellent show and one that I intend on continuing to watch and see how the storylines progress. One that that should be noted: This is an HBO series. It was made for cable television and there is quite a bit of violence, language, and even some nudity. Some viewers may find this content inappropriate, but in my view, this is a top rate program.
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