Godfather of Harlem

Godfather of Harlem has a way of sucking viewers into its seductive sphere, where silly asides live comfortably with explosive, gory violence as well as informed dreams of what Harlem might've been like at a pivotal point in history.

It is an ambitious, layered period piece about Harlem in the mid-‘60s that seeks to dramatize the often intersecting movements of the mafia and the battle for civil rights. The Oscar-winning star of “The Last King of Scotland” holds it all together, but this is definitely an ensemble piece, and it’s smart, engaging television that only occasionally falters under the weight of its ambition to tell a few too many stories at once.

Godfather dissects these complicated relationships even as it examines how white supremacy operates within the criminal underworld. Between this thoughtfulness and scenes of intense violence, Brancato and Eckstein sometimes struggle to maintain a consistent tone. Add subplots about Bumpy’s family, crooked cops, the Italians (Paul Sorvino, Vincent D’Onofrio, Chazz Palminteri) and star-crossed love, and episodes can get crowded. Still, the show’s ambition pays off in the rare gangster epic we haven’t seen before.

Whitaker and the rest of the cast are first-rate, but what's most compelling about "Godfather" are its apparent ambitions.

Through his recessive and quiet charisma, [Forest Whitaker] provides the strongest case for the series. The show’s depiction of the Italian mobsters as raffish louts lacks any imagination or real take on the material. (Give them credit, at least, for going with the best: The casting of the likes of Vincent D’Onofrio, Paul Sorvino, and Chazz Palminteri gives scenes that otherwise feel tired a nice patina of quality.)

It’s a promising setup, but the show doesn’t build on it after the opening episode. The story starts to veer off into tangents that are melodramatic (a fairly insipid Romeo and Juliet subplot involving Gigante’s daughter), distractingly implausible (an episode built around attempts to fix a Cassius Clay fight) or both (a family member of Johnson’s caught up in drugs and prostitution).

Despite Bumpy’s higher goals in a series that hones in on issues of the era that were especially of importance to black Americans, ultimately it’s aiming more for popcorn watchability than for Emmys, and can really only be appreciated on those terms.

Enjoyable series, great characters and some terrific acting. Only qualm is how wrong the religious talk is "Christianity is a white man religion" I think malcom x would have been well read enough to know that Christianity was in Ethiopia long before it came to Europe. Arabs are the saviours of the African man even though they enslaved them for 14 centuries and castration was their welcome to Arabia gift! Americans claim to be the smartest amd most informed but they refuse to acknowledge the real roots and history of the ancestors they claim to care so much about if you care learn the full story and refuse the american education propaganda to subjugate you