Grid Effect

In the past six months, NBC has taken a risk with a wide variety of network dramas and sitcoms that break the mold of the garden variety we are accustom to. Some have been commercially and/or critically successful (Heroes, Friday Night Lights), while others have been utter bombs (Studio 60 anyone?), but what you cannot begudge Kevin Reilly for is a lack of effort, in a time when most entertainment venues are stale, flat and predicatable, I think that is to be applauded.

Under the same mode of operation, NBC debuted The Black Donnelly’s last Monday to mixed reviews. The series was created by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, who brought us the 2005 Oscar winner for Best Picture in Crash. Haggis, who got his start in television has never been one for subtlety so the unapologetic nature of “Donnelly’s” should have been anticipated. But the series did have its positives and negatives and the mixed reviews express my sentiments exactly for what I saw last Monday. Here’s a quick summary of my thought process while watching at lunch seven days ago:

Heavy narration=cheap plot device, too many characters introduced too soon, there’s a recognizable face, that doesn’t make any sense, Tommy Donnelly is a decent actor, this is like a cross between “Sleepers” and “The Godfather”, there’s two recognizable faces, cliche, cliche, melodramatic acting, I can successfully identify every character now, who are all those women?, Holy shit! that was a damn good payoff and an unexpected twist. I’m intrigued.

It came as no surprise to me when Nielsen feedback showed that The Black Donnelly’s lost millions of viewers from teh first half hour to the second. For the first thiry minutes there is almost nothing positive to say about the series. It was, and I am being generous when I say this, very disjointed. There is almost no symmetry from scene to scene, we are introduced to about three scores of characters in the first fifteen minutes and given about ten different back stories. It was initially confusing, upon second viewing everything was crystal clear but never the less, sloppy.

If you did happen to tune in for the first half hour then sticking around for the second half hour was worth your time, because the payoff was in the final five minutes was enormous, even if somewhat predicatable. Either way, the episode beomces more of a redemption tale then a standard issue crime story.

The characters are essentially carbon copies etched out from other crime dramas and plastered onto the screen as Irishmen instead of Italians. The four brothers all have shades of Sonny, Michael and Fredo. Tommy is the soft spoken leader trying to steer him and his three brothers from a life of crime, he is Michael all the way. Jimmy is the hot headed older brother with a heroin habit making Sonny with a touch of Fredo. then the two characters that are essentially put on the back burner are the little brother Sean (seems intelligent like Michael but weak and misguided like Fredo). And Kevin, whom has a penchant for gambling despite his notorious bad luck (dumb like Fredo but ruthless like Michael). All in all, there is a lot of material here for one episode.

Some of the peripherial characters are borderline unbearable. Particularly Jenny Reilly, the childhood tomboy friend of the four brothers. According to the narrator (we’ll get to him in a minute) her husband has been dead for an undetermined amount of time, everyone in the neighborhood besides her knows this yet she is under the impression he is at some sort of teacher’s conference.

A cliched, insufferable little fellow by the name of Joey “ice cream” is narrating the story to two detectives. Aside from a few instances, we are never quite sure how he is privy to all of the information he is. He has longed to have siblings like the Donnelly’s and is something of the smarmy loser that everyone uses as the neighborhood whipping boy. He has an obnoxiously grating voice and is supposed to be for comic relief, such as when he keeps rehashing or embellishing stories (”I was with a girl that doesn’t stop all night”, then we see his mother chase him out to a cab). It is never made clear if Joey is honest or not when talking to the cops, so it leaves the option open for several more twists and turns if the writers deem that necessary.

We get a little backstory to the Italian family, but nothing of substance. It is worth pointing out that there are several “that guy’s” in this pilot. There is that guy who played Frank Sobotka in the second season of The Wire, that guy who played Murmur on The Sopranos and the CO on Rescue Me and that guy who played Miguel Alvarez on OZ, in which he was a latino crime leader; now he is the Italian mob lead on “Donnelly’s” and seemingly the main antagonist.

As far as technical aspects are concerned, the writing is mediocre, the quality of acting varies (Peaks with Kevin Donnelly and bottoms out with Jimmy), the cinematography is, well, cinematic; and the plot is intriguing. I cannot recall what the last network crimes series was, but as far as these things are concerned, the show was watchable. Haggis, who was responsible for a previous series of the same vein with EZ Streets, and has been quite successful in film the past few years with Crash Letters From Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers and Casino Royale and Million Dollar Baby (all of which he wrote the screenplays for and the first of which he directed). With that kind of film resume, coupled witrh television work in the same genre, one would expect the series to be exceptional as opposed to simply watchable.

Not to say Black Donnelly’s wasn’t a complete flop by any means, but if it wasn’t for the last five minutes I might have been singing a different tune. Never the less, I am somewhat eager to see where they take this story so I’ll be tuning in tonight. this is a series that is really dependent on personal preference, if you like crime dramas, it is worth the hour out of your evening. If you do not like Goodfellas, The Departed or any other mob movie, do not even bother. Because while I thought the premiere had its redeeming qualities, it is nowhere near the caliber of the two Scorsese pictures.