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DivisionPost
Jun 28, 2006

Nobody likes you.
Everybody hates you.
You're gonna lose.

Smile, you fuck.
So Edward Burns got a role in Saving Private Ryan on the strength of the work he was doing in indie film at the time (The Brothers McMullen, She's the One). His father and uncle, both retired cops, are flown in to visit him, and on some downtime, Burns introduces his family to Steven Spielberg. They chat for a while about the usual stuff, "I bet you're proud of your son," "Holy Goddamn making GBS threads gently caress you're Steven Spielberg," you know the drill. But at some point the conversation must have turned to the time Burns's father and uncle spent working Vice Squad in NYC during the late '50s and '60s, because during lunch that same day, Spielberg pulls Burns over and says "Your next movie needs to be about cops like like those two guys."



Well, it wasn't that easy. Spielberg hires Burns to write the screenplay. He turns in a draft titled "On the Job," but it never got off the ground. Nearly two decades later, Burns is wrapping up his stint as Bugsy Siegel in Frank Darabont's Mob City, and TNT decides they like him. So they ask if there's anything he really wanted to do that the network might be able to produce.

Burns goes back to his pile of unproduced scripts, dusts off On the Job, and starts expanding it into what he describes as a saga about two different families linked by marriage: The Muldoons, a family of cops, and the Pattons, a family of Irish gangsters operating out of Hell's Kitchen.

As far as I can tell from trailers and Wikipedia, Burns plays Terry Muldoon, a plainclothes Vice (aka Public Morals) officer who's corrupt in the sense that his job is technically to disrupt drugs, prostitution, and gambling -- not regulate them. But as far as he and anyone with boots on the ground is concerned, as long as you pay your tribute and don't gently caress with the peace, you're not doing anything that wasn't going to somehow happen anyway. "Think of us as your landlords," Muldoon tells a man who apparently needed to be told. "If you wanna be in business, you gotta pay your rent."

So so far it sounds like The Shield in the 50s with a lot more of the family poo poo that this forum can't get enough of, and it's running on a network who has only aired two shows that people remember beyond "a thing that happened on television": The Closer and Leverage. (And The Closer is arguable.) Why is there reason to hope?

A.) Because of a cast that includes Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Brian Dennehy, and Robert Knepper. Plus, Neal McDonough and Timothy Hutton play the antagonists. (Michael Rappaport is also a cast member, not that he helps my argument much.)

B.) Because THIS loving TRAILER, which manages to grip and engage despite running through every anti-hero cop trope in the book (THERE ARE LAWS AND THERE ARE RULES):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjdIECcmf0A

I mean, if Low Winter Sun showed a tenth of that energy, people might've watched it after Breaking Bahahahahaha no they wouldn't.

Anyway, first episode rolls tomorrow night at 10 ET. The day after, TNT puts the first four episodes up on its website / app for your perusal. This is definitely a "Time will tell" situation, but this is a passion project for Burns, and on camera he looks engaged in a way he hasn't been for years. So hopefully the energy we've seen in the marketing comes through in the final product; the world could do with some 50s-era NYPD headbreakers.

DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Aug 25, 2015

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Junior G-man
Sep 15, 2004

Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma


God drat that trailer looks glorious.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I hope this show is good because Ed Burns is the loving man.

mrbotus
Apr 7, 2009

Patron of the Pants
They killed the famous movie guy in the first episode, because everyone knows TV isn't working out for famous actors nowadays. Why bother doing more than a half hour cameo?

Also, LOL at the stupid loving cops hazing the college boy. I hope there's a genuine good cop to round out this series and not just a bunch of douche bags loving each other over. I hope the college boy is a psycho who fucks over the other cops.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I think the show was not good.

Big Bad Voodoo Lou
Jan 1, 2006
I was hoping for something a little more James Ellroy, a little darker and edgier. I actually enjoyed TNT's Mob City (although I'm pissed I never got to see the last two episodes), but I'm a sucker for neo-noir period pieces, so I want to give Public Morals a chance to get more interesting.

This one felt anachronistic, though. The fashions screamed early '60s to me, but they were also referring to hippies and playing The Doors on the soundtrack. I don't think they ever placed it in a specific year.

Assepoester
Jul 18, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
Melman v2

Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:

I was hoping for something a little more James Ellroy, a little darker and edgier. I actually enjoyed TNT's Mob City (although I'm pissed I never got to see the last two episodes)
You missed the good part of Mob City then, where we find out WHO REALLY KILLED BUGSY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHM_l-2oUbI

Keyser_Soze
May 5, 2009

Pillbug
yeah, the years were throwing me off too, thought it was 58-60 or so based on the dress but they are playing the Doors 1967 and driving 1965 Chevy Impalas along with the 58 Caddy. At first I thought it might have been going back and forth timewise and doing flashbacks with Timothy Hutton.

Ed Burns is great though.

Keyser_Soze fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Aug 27, 2015

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Keyser_Soze
May 5, 2009

Pillbug
Was I the only viewer of this show? :smith:

Something was off with it, you got Neal McDonough and Ed Burns and a season long wait until they actually face off. It just strung out way too long I guess, meh.

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