Is really that bad? - Mob City (2013) Discussion

[–] divk85 11 years ago

For whatever someone else's opinion is worth, I enjoyed it. I give it an 8 so far.

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[–] PunishU 11 years ago

I enjoyed both this and Magic City since both shows were just a great send-up of the crime mysteries I grew up watching. Overall, both easily blow the poorly constructed Boardwalk Empire out of the water.

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[–] goobikza 11 years ago

Not every Film Noir movie was Maltese Falcon, some of them were not good at all, but like pizza and sex...even when it's bad it's still pretty good. Mob City can be described like that...it's not epic, but it's probably hard for a show to find its legs in only 6 episodes. For years I've had the book it's based on, but never read it past the first couple chapters for some reason. Need to dust that thing off and dig into it.

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[–] Sandoz 11 years ago

I agree with you, goob...even "bad" film noir has it's charms...to a fan.

But that doesn't mean that one can't still be objective when it comes to facing facts and judging how a film (or tv shows) stacks up when compared to it's genre' bretheren. And in all honesty, this show leaves a lot to be desired to say it's a good work of neo-noir.

Personally, when it comes to the TV shows I tune in for, I have three distinct categories:

First is shows that I love watching so much I'll feel saddened and deprived when they go off the air and I can't watch them anymore. THE SOPRANOS was a show like this, so was BREAKING BAD.

Second are shows that my objective mind knows aren't really good, but something about them interests me enough to keep watching...but if they get cancelled, I'll shed no tears for their absence.

Third are shows I watch because they're so terrible something about them entertains me just to see how much worse or ridiculous they can get.

MOB CITY falls into the 2nd group for me. But there's been a few times in certain scenes it's fallen to the nadir of the 3rd.

. . . there's always room for Jello!

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[–] jgribble-1 11 years ago

Is it really that bad? Definitely not. It is considerably better than other recent mobster offerings such as Gangster Squad, Vegas, and obviously Mob Doctor. It is also a good deal better than the modern noire Low Winter Sun (US). MC is also not that great. It (seemingly intentionally) overly relies on genre conventions and has some scenes (ie. the opening robbery or some of the dialogue) where this genre appreciation simply doesn't work. I found the both the acting and direction to be solid, not amazing, but consistently decent or even good. It may be inferior to Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Sopranos, the Wire, Mad Men and other shows of that caliber, but it is still a good bit better than most shows running on TV.

For me personally I liked it quite a bit. It may be deserving of a 7 or 8 as a show in general, but to my taste it was closer to a 9. But I liked what the show was going for, a send up to traditional noire films and novels that was more interested in making a solid noire show than transcending the genre.

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[–] patkav6 11 years ago

It's just has a depressing feel to it. Somber and slow starting. Still need to watch the final two eps, we'll see.

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[–] 11 years ago

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