MobLand: TV Review - Top Notch Cast Saves Middling Mob Drama

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This isn’t a great show…and it might not even be a good show…but it is somehow, someway, a somewhat mindlessly entertaining show.

MobLand, which stars Tom Hardy as a mob-fixer in modern-day London, just finished its first season on Paramount +…and I have some thoughts.

As readers may remember, I have been in a bit of a funk when it comes to film and television as of late…television in particular. I have been overcome with a great sense of indifference to the current era of “prestige tv”, and have struggled to even watch a show for more than two episodes.

For example, the recent spate of new seasons of prestige tv dramas – Severance, The Last of Us and The White Lotus, I did not watch or quit watching after two episodes because I just didn’t give a shit.

Readers may also remember that I almost skipped the Disney + series Andor altogether, but ended up watching it out of some weird sense of duty and ended up really loving it.

Which brings us to MobLand.

I am not a regular Paramount + viewer. In fact, I’m usually not subscribed to the streaming service but because my wife wanted to watch one of the shows she enjoys (Yellowjackets) we got it for like a three-month deal or something. It was during this stretch that I saw ads for MobLand…and I saw it starred Tom Hardy, an actor I really admire, and when I was bored one day, I figured, why not give MobLand a try?

MobLand, which premiered its first episode March 30th and ended its ten-episode season June 1st, has quite the pedigree…it is produced by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, it is co-written and created by esteemed playwright and screenwriter Jez Butterworth, and its cast features the aforementioned Tom Hardy as well as Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren….not too shabby.

The series follows the travails of Harry De Souza (Hardy), a fixer for the Harrigan crime family. The Harrigans – led by aging patriarch Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) and Lady MacBeth like matriarch Maeve (Helen Mirren), are quite the collection of misfits and miscreants. Kevin Harrigan (Paddy Considine), son to Conrad and Maeve, is Harry De Souza’s childhood friend and his adult accomplice in crime.

Of course, Harry and Kevin have wives and teenage kids and they create all sorts of drama too, and Conrad and Maeve like to stir the pot with their various nefarious machinations as well. There are also the cops who are breathing down the Harrigan’s neck as is another crime family looking for blood and to take their crown.

I’ll avoid plot specifics from here on in…but rest assure there is A LOT of plot, and a whole lotta shit going down in the seedy London crime world.

So, is MobLand as great show? No. Is it a good show? I’ll be honest…I don’t think so. Is it a watchable show? Yes…most definitely.

The reason it’s watchable is because it has a terrific cast that do steady work despite the at-times trying script. The plot is…well…very tv show-ish…meaning it is preposterous and outlandish to the point of being absurd.

MobLand isn’t the Sopranos, or the Godfather or Goodfellas…and yet…I kept watching it, which is saying a great deal. As flawed as it is, its greatest trait is that it is somehow mindless enough to be oddly compelling.  

Tom Hardy does stellar work as the brooding Harry, who navigates the Harrigan spiderweb of treachery with a steely-eyed aplomb. Hardy never lets you down and that is very true in MobLand, as this show just doesn’t work without him.

Pierce Brosnan is showier than we’ve ever seen him as Conrad – the bombastic and brutal crime boss, and it is amusing to watch him huff and puff and blow doors down in every scene he inhabits.

Paddy Considine, a truly remarkable actor, gives maybe the best performance in the show as a conflicted and psychologically tormented son to greatness. Considine imbues his Kevin with a bruised and battered humanity that is desperately trying to survive in a cruel and heartless world, and it is quite riveting to behold.

Unfortunately, I found Helen Mirren’s performance as Maeve to be, frankly, distractingly bad, but at least she isn’t in it enough to really muck things up. There’s just something off about Mirren’s portrayal of Maeve…a sort of disconnect, which is not apparent in any of the other performances.

One performance of note is Anson Boon as Eddie Harrigan, Kevin’s rebellious son (and Conrad and Maeve’s favorite grandchild). Boon is so good at playing Eddie as a despicable douchebag asshole, that he might just ruin his entire career. And the costume designer who put him in the most off-putting douchebag ensembles, deserves an Emmy – well done. Boon is like that kid who played Joffrey in Game of Thrones and was so good at being an obnoxious piece of shit he essentially quit acting afterwards. Boon as Eddie has the most punchable face in recent memory and the attitude to match…and it is shocking how much I hated this little prick. Kudos to him.

As for the structure of the series, it is kind of all over the place. The show starts small and gets much too big for its britches and it becomes more preposterous with every passing moment and by the end of season one is borderline psychotic. But like I said, it is an oddly fun piece of mindless tv…and can be enjoyed in that way.

If you’re bored, or bed-ridden, or have nothing else to do but stare out a window, you could do much worse than watch MobLand to pass the time. It is one of those shows that asks nothing from you and lets you just watch with no pressure and no expectations.

MobLand certainly didn’t end my indifference towards television, but it did do enough to keep me watching it…and that should be considered a victory…for who I have no idea.

©2025

Trumbo : A Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!! THIS IS A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW!!****

MY RATING: SKIP IT

Years ago, on an extremely hot August day, I was jogging down the street in Brooklyn when I had the great misfortune to step in a supernaturally large pile of dog excrement. I nearly slipped and fell as the excrement acted like a banana peel and knocked me off my stride, but thankfully due to my incredibly athletic and balletically graceful nature I was able to regain my balance. If I hadn't been in such an urban setting I would have assumed the creator of the excrement in question was a grizzly bear or a Sasquatch and not a dog, but due to setting, circumstances and available evidence, I lay the blame upon man's best friend. Upon closer inspection the excrement was fresh, slick and steamy and, as is the case with most excrement, smelled most foul. In order to avoid any further embarrassment or attention from passers-by, I quickly left the scene of the poop-step incident and went to find a less public place to clean my sneaker. I ended up down a side street trying to use the curb to clean out the crevices of my sneaker. As time wore on and the amount of poop on my sneaker shrunk, somehow the smell grew worse, nearly rendering me unconscious. It was at this moment that I realized that this noble sneaker, with it's complicated zig-zag sole which seemed designed to hold poop deep in it's marrow, was going to be a casualty of this brown encounter and would not survive, and his partner, although poop free, would be lost to the ages as well.

I was reminded of this story while watching the film Trumbo.

Trumbo, written by John McNamara and abysmally directed by Jay Roach, is the story of legendary screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Trumbo, along with nine other screenwriters, was  blacklisted for being and/or associating with communists during the red scare in the 1940's and 50's. Trumbo was also imprisoned for Contempt of Congress for refusing to give the names of his communist friends to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Dalton Trumbo was a talented, brave and principled man who lived a life worth honoring and remembering. Trumbo the movie is little more than some odorous excrement stuck upon Dalton Trumbo's rather large shoe.

Trumbo is a baffling film, it boasts a plethora of outstanding acting talent, all of which turn in mortifying performances. Bryan Cranston, Hellen Mirren, Diane Lane and Michael Stuhleberg are all truly great actors, but their work in Trumbo has all the depth and commitment of a high school sketch comedy troupe trying on hats at the local haberdashery. What makes this all the more baffling is that the only reason I saw Trumbo was because I got a copy of it sent to me in an effort to get me to vote for it for a Screen Actors Guild award. This is the equivalent of Chris Christie mailing out a workout video in an attempt to garner votes. Rest assured, neither will be getting my vote.

Bad acting is more a symptom rather than the disease afflicting Trumbo. The disease is the insipid and inept direction of Jay Roach. There is not a single scene in Trumbo that has any genuine human connection or interaction in it or any coherent dramatic arc to it…not one. Roach's direction is sloppy, unfocused and frankly an embarrassment. There are some technical gaffes that are jaw dropping as well, which point to unconscionable laziness or outright incompetence.

John McNamara's script is a bloated atrocity, which needed to have about ten more rewrites if not fifteen chainsaws put to it. McNamara has a background in television and it shows in his film script. Dalton Trumbo had such a vast and interesting life that his story would have been much better served if it were a series or miniseries on HBO. But alas it isn't a tv series, it is a film, and a dreadfully shallow and appalling one at that.

In conclusion, Trumbo, like that steamy summer poop from my Brooklyn past, really stinks. Dalton Trumbo the man deserves much more than this god-awful bio-pic tainting his legacy. Dalton Trumbo's story is an important one that teaches all of us vital lessons that are as imperative now as they have ever been, but you'd never know that by watching Trumbo. If you are interested in the life and times of Dalton Trumbo, I recommend you avoid Trumbo at all costs and instead watch the 2007 PBS documentary about the man (below), you'll be much better served.

©2016