Mob City looks through old Los Angeles darkly.
I dont know whether Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky and Sid Rothman played the fiddle.
Maybe their mothers sent them for violin lessons, but I cant really picture it.
Hijacking truckloads of booze as the theaters let out is a fun Friday night.
Meyer and Bugsy are already making history.
Sid is on his way to a lifetime of trouble.
The streets are dark and wet.
Flash forward to 1947 and youre in Los Angeles.
The streets are dark and wet there too.
Prohibition is long gone but there is always room for rackets.
LA is pretty much an open city and up for grabs.
Gangsters from New York have come in and scooped up the unions and most of the dope trade.
The mobsters are pretty well-known around town and pal around the Tinseltown luminaries.
The cops are no geraniums.
Wrong is wrong and black is usually black and that has traditionally been wrong when youre wearing blue.
But theyre open minded.
Everyone is a criminal to them.
Its just a matter of finding out what laws are being broken.
Put them in the same room as the cops getting greased and you got some serious suspense on tap.
Jon Bernthal is Joe Teague, LA homicide division.
you’re free to trust a cop whos pulling on the side.
Teague pulls from both sides.
So, a man walks into a bar and pulls out his card.
Hes a stand-up comic whos also a standup guy.
At least he has been.
Hecky ran out on a movie theater heist that Cohen planned when they were kids in that gang.
Planned, as Hecky explains it, is in the eye of the beholder.
Mickey is now a big shot in Los Angeles.
Heckys got an extortion scam going, seems hes got these pictures.
But Heckys not going after Mickey Cohen.
No, Heckys going after a bigger fish, former street violinist, Benjamin Siegel (Edward Burns).
He was just figuring out how to clean it out.
Really, theres just no talking to this guy.
Thats how Teague handles it, he really doesnt talk to any of the new cops hes assigned to.
And when he does, its usually out of the side of his mouth.
But he doesnt stutter.
It was good to see Bernthal and Jeffrey DeMunn back at it.
They were at odds on Walking Dead and Im sure theyll be headed into similar head butts onMob City.
Jeffrey DeMunn has his own mob movie bona fides.
He played Houdini inRagtime.
It looks like Simon Pegg isnt really enjoying his retro turn as the angry clown whos ditching the circus.
Characters seem a little stiff in retrospect, because the actors are still filling their suits.
Youre a little stiff.
I think Milo Ventimiglio will be wearing a different face as the series progresses.
The same shoes, but a different face.
His fixer character will adjust as the actor settles in.
He seems a little young right now to have been Jon Bernthals ditch mate in World War II.
Except when he acknowledges that Teague always knew he was a smart guy.
I fully believe thatMob Cityis going to get picked up past the six episodes TNT is running.
They got a push on TMC.
AndGoogle+, if thats your thing!
Rating:
3.5 out of 5
