THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK
A well-acted gangster prequel that misses its moral mark.
Should You Watch It?
The answer is straightforward: this is a well-acted and well-directed gangster movie that is not worth your family’s time or conscience. Alessandro Nivola gives an excellent performance as Dickie, a friendly man whose dark side erupts in deadly anger. The movie also presents the negative consequences of criminal behavior and dysfunctional family relationships.
But that moral direction is too light, undeveloped, and vague to carry the story. The film contains a significant amount of foul language, lewd content, strong violence, and some graphic violence. Its ending is also anticlimactic, weakening what might have been a powerful tragedy about the influence adults have on young people.
You may find worthwhile performances and serious themes here, but the content rating is −3, and the movie does not offer enough positive or dramatically compelling guidance to offset them. The practical answer is simple: skip it.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESThis prequel to HBO’s mob series The Sopranos follows Dickie, Tony Soprano’s favorite uncle, amid criminal activity and gang conflict in Newark, New Jersey, during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The story focuses on Dickie’s relationships with Tony as a child and teenager, his family dynamics, and his involvement in the mob’s numbers racket. As Dickie’s criminal choices shape his relationships, Tony watches and absorbs the example set before him.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means there is real craft here, even though the film ultimately misses its mark. The movie is well acted and directed, and the whole cast does a good job. Alessandro Nivola gives an excellent performance as Uncle Dickie, portraying both his friendly nature and his capacity for terrible anger.
William Gandolfini also does a good job. Ray Liotta is effective in dual roles, and Vera Farmiga and Michela De Rossi provide especially strong supporting performances. Director Alan Taylor brings a distinguished television background, including work on The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, and Mad Men.
The weaknesses are in the script and structure. The premise and message remain vague, the moral consequences are not developed strongly enough, and the ending is anticlimactic.
The Worldview
The movie presents a very light and underdeveloped morality tale about the negative consequences of crime and dysfunctional family relationships. A main gangster tries to make up for evil deeds and a sinful lifestyle through good works, but the film seems to show that this godless effort is foolish. Its dark humanist world includes a Roman Catholic environment that is ineffectual in people’s lives.
The story also treats systemic racism as the main problem suffered by Newark’s black community during the late 1960s and 1970s. A side character in prison for murder has begun to reform morally and mentions a Buddhist principle that views immorality as a psychological problem caused by attachment to desires and wants.
The film’s central failure is that it does not make its moral message strong or explicit enough. It shows criminal behavior influencing Tony, including his affinity for crime and his volatile, violent temper, but it does not fully explain his development. The source review identifies the true answer as repentance—turning away from the mobster lifestyle—and faith in God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Scripture says, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Very light, undeveloped, rather vague morality tale shows negative consequences of living a life of crime, and main gangster character tries to make up for his evil/sinful deeds and lifestyle by doing good works, but the movie implicitly seems to show this kind of godless effort is foolish, set in a dark humanist world where Christianity (specifically a Roman Catholic environment) is ineffectual in people’s lives, though an extended Italian family has the priest attend their confirmation party for one young teenage girl in the family, and where a politically correct, strong liberal view of “systemic racism” is seen as the main problem being suffered by the black community in Newark, New Jersey during the late 1960s and the 1970s, plus a side character, who’s in prison for murder but has begun to reform himself morally, overtly mentions a Buddhist philosophical principle about seeing immorality as a psychological problem of being too attached to one’s desires and wants
Foul Language
At least 85 obscenities (including many “f” words by adult characters and a few “f” words by young boys who are friends in one or two scenes), five strong profanities and three light profanities
Violence
Some extreme bloody violence occurs such as a gunshot explodes part of a man’s head during a gunfight, some white criminals chase down a young black man who cheated them into a military recruitment office and fire their guns into his body, and a man angrily beats his father to death by viciously slamming his head into a steering wheel after he confronts the father for throwing his young wife down the stairs just like he did the man’s mother, plus some strong violence includes a white man drowns his mistress in the ocean when he learns the woman slept with the black criminal who’s become his criminal rival in the city, a lengthy gunfight occurs between the two rival men’s crews in the streets with people being seriously shot dead, at least one mobster criminal is assassinated by a gunman, police shoot a criminal running away from them during an arrest of some criminals, man drags his father’s body into the father’s auto body shop and sets fire to the body and the shop, two police officers drag a taxi driver out of his cab and seem to start beating him in a recreation of the historical event that instigated the Summer 1967 riots in Newark, NJ, and some scenes featuring those 1967 riots, vandalism, arsons, and looting (one white man driving a convertible through one of the streets gets a small bloody wound on his forehead when someone throws a rock at him, the man gets out of his car and shortly thereafter has to wave his gun at some rioters trying to destroy the car, and rioters throw Molotov cocktails and one hits the trunk of a police car, forcing two officers to get out of the car), etc.
Sex
Three brief images or shots of depicted fornication (one seems partially depicted), a man and his wife live with his father, and the man hears his father crudely making love with his new younger wife from Italy, and major male character takes his father’s wife for a mistress after he kills his father in a fit of rage for throwing her down the stairs just like he did his mother and makes his father’s death looks like part of some city rights in 1967)
Nudity
Upper female nudity after one scene of depicted fornication, and a few images of upper male nudity
Alcohol Use
Alcohol use
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
Smoking, brief talk about selling drugs instead of running gambling rackets in the 1970s because the state is about to start a lottery of its own, teenage boy wants to see his moody mother take the prescription drugs for her moodiness that have been recommended by her doctor (he makes a reference to the 1966 Rolling Stones song “Mother’s Little Helper,” which satirically discusses the taking of such tranquilizer drugs by married women and mothers in the 1960s; the song was intended to point out the alleged hypocrisy to adults who complain about teenage drug use when adults are doing a similar thing), and mother complains to her teenage son that she thinks his teenage sister is smoking marijuana;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Organized crime, Italian mobsters run a numbers racket, black criminal decides to start his own numbers racket instead of working for the Italian mobsters (this leads to a gang war between the white gangsters and the black gangsters, which the black man freely desires to start, if necessary), dysfunctional families, and boy is expelled from school after his numbers racket among his fellow classmates is exposed.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
The film shows how a young person can be shaped by the criminal and immoral example of an adult. What kind of example are adults setting for the children who watch them?
Proverbs 22:6 · Matthew 18:6The story presents good works as insufficient without genuine repentance. What does the Bible say repentance involves?
Mark 1:15 · 2 Corinthians 7:10The movie portrays dysfunctional family relationships and the damage caused when adults misuse their influence. How can families pursue truth, responsibility, and restoration?
Ephesians 4:25 · Colossians 3:12–14The film connects crime and violence with broader community problems. How should Christians respond to injustice while rejecting vengeance and violence?
Micah 6:8 · Romans 12:19–21The Final Word
The performances are strong, especially Alessandro Nivola’s, and the direction is capable. But the movie’s moral message is vague, its ending is anticlimactic, and its content is excessive. For your family and your conscience, SKIP IT. Consider these alternatives instead:.
