Without any preface, Mobland begins with Harry (Tom Hardy) attempting to negotiate a truce between two crime families. After a short harangue that leads to an uneasy agreement, Harry goes to his boss, Conrad (Pierce Brosnan), and tells him the deal is unlikely to hold for long. Harry then returns to the leaders of the two families with a change of plans that culminates in a brutal resolution. And just like that, we are off on one of the most cinematic British gangster series in recent years.
Harry works for the Harrigan crime family led by Conrad and his stealthy wife Maeve (the great Helen Mirren), who may be the true power source in this “power couple.”
Hardy is Brosnan’s right hand: a fixer and “the muscle” all in one quietly brutish British package. Harry is a “get to the point type.” He’s a busy man, and long conversations are not part of his toolkit. Harry lays out the options before those in front of him, and they can either go along to get along or get gone the hard way. Hardy, who has occasionally been criticized for being overly broad or using curious accents, does neither here. This is Hardy in terrific, low-key, menacing form. His casual, plain-spoken method of polite intimidation is slyly amusing. Hardy barely seems to be acting at all. The role of Harry suits him so well; he doesn’t need to indulge a single affectation.
Take the scene in episode one where Harry talks a hospitalized young fellow from fingering a ne’er do well nephew of Conrad’s named Eddie (Kevin Boone in an appropriately louse of a human being performance) for stabbing him in a club. The injured party has no doubt who knifed him, but as Harry coaches the fellow through what will become his false police statement, it’s hard not to smirk or laugh aloud when Harry makes him go through his story a second time, but with the request that he be more “convincing.” The injured fellow wisely obliges, and Harry’s task is complete.
Pierce Brosnan may play the boss, with against-type, mean-spirited aplomb, and any project with Helen Mirren in sharp as a fresh nail form will grab your attention, but based on episode one, Hardy is the star. Harry is a straightforward delight for those who like Hardy best in rough and ready, all business, talk quietly but break your thumb if you waste his time mode. That is to say, if thumbbreakers are your thing, and if you’ve chosen to watch a ruthless British gangster show, I’m going to guess that digit-manglers hold sway with you, and who better to sway with than Tom Hardy?
My one red flag going into Mobland was the pilot’s director and the show’s executive producer, Guy Ritchie. I haven’t taken a liking to a Ritchie film since his messy but wildly entertaining Snatch way back at the turn of this century. To me, Ritchie is like a less successful Quentin Tarantino. Once he reached a certain level of fame, he became a brand, and one that, despite having as many failures as successes, seemed to come with no guardrails. Time and time again, Ritchie’s films felt like exercises in self-indulgence. His career started out with great promise due to his one-two punch of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch quickly went down a tiresome rabbithole of smugness. But with Mobland, as if to reflect his leading man’s performance, Ritchie tamps down on his worst impulses as a director, straightening up and flying right for once. Ritchie’s excessive style has often gotten in the way of his projects, but with Mobland, you can feel Ritchie serving the subject instead of himself. It’s a rare sight I wouldn’t mind seeing more of from the talented but often far too sure of himself filmmaker.
Based on the pilot episode, Mobland aims to get down to business and go light on the exposition. Complexities start to sneak into the show as the episode moves along. We wonder who’s truly running the Harrigan family, Conrad or Maeve (my bet is on Dame Mirren). Conrad’s desire to go all-in on the Fentanyl trade and encroach on the territory of other crime families, which could prove to be costly, if not foolhardy, is an ambition that is thus far cloaked in some mystery. The Harrigan family hardly seems to be struggling, but who knows what devlish truth lies behind Conrad’s ambitions? While all gangsters want more money, there seems to be more afoot here than adding more pound notes to the scale.
Mobland may set off more than a few fireworks in episode one, but there’s a sense of a slow-burn intent regarding revelations around the Harrigan family’s motivations. That’s not to say that the show is slow-moving, far from it. Aside from the sudden violent punctuation marks in episode one, Mobland is a sleek viewing experience, with top-notch cinematography and production design and an insistent, pulsating score that creates momentum, even when the camera is still. The extended cast, with Paddy Considine as Conrad and Maeve’s son, and Joanne Froggat of Downton Abbey fame, also do a fine job of classing the joint up.
Interestingly, Mobland was initially intended to be a prequel of sorts to Showtime’s Ray Donovan before being reworked by series creator Ronan Bennett, who kept the pulp but seems to have done away with just about everything else. Whether you liked Ray Donovan or not, the last thing Mobland feels like is Ray Donovan’s progeny. It’s not just the change in locale; it’s the entire mood of the show. If I were to pick nits, I would say that Mobland can sometimes feel familiar. It’s not like it’s the first British gangster show or film ever made, and while there are hints at possible eccentricities to come (especially regarding Brosnan and Mirren’s power dynamic), we’ll just have to wait and see. But for now, the show’s abundant style, sharp dialogue, and superior performances make it easy to look past the pilot’s minor shortcomings, which may well fade away over the life of the season. Even if they don’t, and the show doesn’t entirely break free from its genre, Mobland looks to be a superior crime drama with a top-shelf performance by Hardy at the center of it. One could do a hell of a lot worse with an hour of their time each Sunday night for the next ten weeks.
Mobland airs on Sunday nights on Paramount+ through June 1
