Working more prodigiously than lightning-fast directors Steven Soderbergh or Steven Spielberg these days, British filmmaker Guy Ritchie is on a roll, and it’s arguably the greatest creative jag of his career. Having just completed a family crime drama with last year’s “The Gentleman” series, a spin-off of his “The Gentlemen” 2017 movie, both of these reprisals of the “Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” crime comedy genre were amusing and droll, but were undoubtedly very familiar in shape and tone, constantly testing the limits of trying to be too clever. No such problem exists in the deeply compelling, much more somber family crime drama, “MobLand,” starring the engaging and fierce trio of Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren.
For one, it certainly helps that Ritchie didn’t write this one. While he likes to be seen as a writer/director, he’s a better filmmaker when interpreting other people’s material rather than penning his own and or at least needs collaborators. Written by Ronan Bennett (“Top Boy”) a former Republican Belfastian prisoner, with the occasional assist by Jez Butterworth (“Edge Of Tomorrow,” “Ford V. Ferrari”), “MobLand” is decidedly darker. Once a “Ray Donovan” spin-off meant to explore a mob family facing various dire challenges in the criminal underworld and the effect their immoral work has on their personal lives and relationships. While no longer “The Donovans,” much of the same DNA still exists, right down to Tom Hardy’s Harry De Souza, London’s most elite fixer for the crime family now known as The Harrigans.
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Led by the Irish patriarch Conrad Harrigan (Brosnan), the fierce matriarch Maeve Harrigan (Mirren), the eldest son Kevin (an excellent, who should also receive top billing), and satellite family members like Bella (Lara Pulver), Kevin’s wife, Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon), Conrad’s daughter from another relationship, and Brendan (Daniel Betts), Conrad and Maeve’s oldest son, and a bit of a useless tit. Also close to the story is Jan Da Souza (“Downton Abbey” star Joanne Froggatt), Harry’s wife, who having second thoughts about being married to a violent fixer who cannot communicate or make time for their domestic issues.
Plot, story and theme meld nicely in “MobLand” into a digestible, easy-to-understand “some of the most poisonous people come disguised as family,” only here, no one’s hiding, and the masks are off.
The Harrigans get into trouble straight away in episode one when the cocky, rebellious Eddie Harrigan (Anson Boon), Kevin’s wayward son, goes out on a night of binge drinking, coke-sniffing and clubbing with two friends and Tommy Stevenson (Felix Edwards), the son of the notorious criminal Richie Stevenson (Geoff Bell) the redoubtable leader of the up-and-coming south London gang.
The two shouldn’t be seen in the same hemisphere, let alone the same car on the way to the club, but the secrecy of their carousing goes sideways when the unhinged and unpredictable Eddie stabs an adversary in the club, all hell breaks loose, and Felix goes missing in the panic and bedlam.
While other matters are always tying up the Harrigans and, in particular, Harry, their fixer and cleaner, the central story is the brewing war between the Harrigans and the Stevensons when Felix goes missing, and word gets out that the two rival boys were last seen together at a night club.
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Tensions rise, hackles rise, and soon, all the dogs in this fight are on anxious, high alert as the volatile Richie Stevenson gets impatient and worried about his missing son’s whereabouts.
As he tries to squeeze the Harrigans for answers, including a meet with young Eddie, Harry has to run interference and do what he can to solve everyone’s problems. The challenge is that the issues are like spinning plates, and Harry has to unflappably whirl dozens of them simultaneously while his family becomes endangered in the escalating dramas, too.
If “MobLand” feels familiar—the head of an organized crime family fighting for power within a global crime syndicate—well, at least the prickly character, terrific actors and sharp writing make it an engrossing watch nonetheless.
And no one is more magnetic than Hardy as Harry, whose cool sangfroid under extreme pressure and duress is unimpeachable. One of the series’ joys is watching Hardy’s Harry so polite, calm, collected and yet exceptionally menacing. Please do the thing I ask or get extremely hurt is the general mien.
Also compelling is Jasmine Jobson as Zosia and Antonio González Guerrero as Kiko, two of Hardy’s resourceful enforcers.
Brosnan’s brogue accent will definitely be heard as dodgy to the ears of the Irish, but otherwise, it’s a terrific performance filled with its own level of hazard. However, Helen Mirren otherwise steals the elders’ show as the incongruous Maeve, who is really running the show in many ways and is often at odds with her family.
The Harrigans, Kevin included, all think that black sheep Eddie, who caused all this unwanted drama in the first place, is a colossal f*ckup who has endangered the family business. Still, Maeve encourages his hot-headed bad behavior and insists he’s got the heart of a lion and a true ruthless Harrigan.
Moreover, the way Maeve calls many shots when the uncertain Conrad is in doubt and asks for her council is a captivating dynamic, especially as he believes he’s in charge, and she lets him keep on dreaming.
“Stick or twist?” he asks her in a dramatic, tension-filled moment, also the title of the pilot episode. The meaning is like cards, stick or hit, only in this case, it’s should we betray and murder? Or should we hold a beat and see what happens to avoid war? Maeve calls a stick as her cooler head prevails, but “MobLand” always simmers with fraught anxiety. A stay of execution leads the initial episodes of Bennett, Ritchie and Butterworth’s absorbing show, but as the intensity rises, the knife twisting is right around the corner. [A-]
Episode one of “MobLand” is streaming now on Paramount+, and the show airs every Sunday until June 1.