3 out of 5

Created by: Ronan Bennett

covers season 1

A quick PSA that does actually frame up this review: Mobland was not created by Guy Ritchie. Mobland was not written by Guy Ritchie. Guy Ritchie was an executive producer, and he directed the first two episodes. Mobland began as a Ray Donovan spin-off. It mutated into a standalone series which became Mobland, picking up all of its executive producers along the way, with Ronan Bennett – hired as a the Donovan-version writer – now billed as creator, and continuing on to co-write the whole series with Jez Butterworth, who maybe got the tap thanks to their work on The Agency, who knows. Who knows how any of this works? And while I’m sure this two-step from one project shape and size to another is super normal, I guess I’m trying to prove out that this all started a little removed from what it became – though we can see the roots of a Donovan-type fixer in lead Tom Hardy’s Harry – and most importantly: Guy Ritchie just directed a couple of episodes. His name’s all over the promotion for the show, and on Reddit, episode recaps through the whole season keeps calling back to Ritchie for helming things.

I recognize this is partially just a bee in my bonnet, but Mobland has a big problem of never really “proving” why you’re watching it, or what you’re watching. It’s pretty superficially about the dysfunctional crime family the Harrigans, with patriarch Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) and matriarch Maeve (Hellen Mirren) really just all-out evil – and perhaps incompetent – leaders, but as we seem to circle around family pseudo-adoptee Harry, maybe it’s more directly about a day-in-the-life of that guy, and assessing how his necessary stoicism affects his crumbling family life. But also, there’s a rat amongst the Harrigans, and a fomenting war with another crim family led by Richie (Geoff Bell), and stray subplots of past sins and betraying fathers and the like, so maybe it’s just a stew of family dramas, and the mobster intrigue is the background.

Or: it’s never effectively about any of those things, and Hardy’s stoicism, while entertaining, feels like a concession to this: with Brosnan and Mirren attempting to chew scenery but their efforts coming across as cringe comedy at points, all of our key players – save those with potentially richer character arcs, like Paddy Considine’s Kevin (a Harrigan son) – appear to be holding back, waiting for the page in the script that clarifies where they should be directing pent-up actorly energy. Brosnan and Mirren are kind of goofing around waiting for that; Hardy’s default is quiet menace, which has gotten harder to pull off as he’s aged into a body / posture that gives off slacker vibes as opposed to intimidating ones.

Guy Ritchie’s opening episodes are also an attempt at branding this into something a bit more rough-and-tumble than it actually is, and end up making for an inauspicious debut. Later directors, especially Anthony Byrne, better allow for the series’ (partially?) accidental parodic sensibilities – we get a lot of the usual idiotic-decisions-as-plot-drivers, and the show doesn’t really mask that – by not trying to be as flashy, but sometimes an editor will come in there and chop things up to make things Ritchie-like again.

All of this is a bit off, for sure, but that admittedly ends up being the show’s allure, as it’s almost uncomfortably unfocused, making it a big-budgeted curiosity. We can appreciate, for example, Harry being written as this heavy who practically never does anything to demonstrate his abilities; or how each mobster “outsmarts” the other with a plan that doesn’t extend beyond the moment; or how the show forces us to watch wholly disconnected subplots, just for some thematic last-minute tie-ins; and because Guy Ritchie is a producer, and there’s a badass theme song, and appropriated swagger all around… just go with it! I’m half-siding with this as being a comedy, the final scene of the first season punctuating that a bit – but also like a comedy where no one wants to admit that’s what they’re doing.

I looked forward to Mobland every week. Nothing ever really happened in it; I kind of hated / disliked / was disinterested in almost every character. And yet, this was also not a hate watch. It was not viewed solely for a lack of other shows on; I was legitimately tuning in. I wouldn’t even say it was to find out if the creators figured out the show – which, spoiler, they did not.

Er, I’ve sat staring at the screen for a few minutes now, trying to determine a concluding statement. My inability to do so seems fitting.