I honestly wasn't expecting to enjoy this series as much as I did because when I first heard the idea, I was thinking.. “Sylvester Stallone as a gangster in Oklahoma?”.. That sounds ridiculous..
Tulsa King follows Dwight “The General” Manfredi, played by Sylvester Stallone, a New York mafia capo who spends 25 years in prison taking the fall for his crime family. When he finally gets out, instead of being welcomed home like the loyal soldier he was, he's basically sent away to Tulsa, Oklahoma to start a new operation. Basically.... “Thanks for doing 25 years for us. Now go to Oklahoma.”. and Dwight isn't exactly happy about it...
What makes the show interesting is watching this old-school gangster try to understand a completely different world. Dwight comes from a time when respect was earned through fear, loyalty mattered and people handled problems face-to-face. Then he arrives in Tulsa and starts meeting people who have absolutely no idea who he is and Dwight's reaction to modern life is honestly hilarious...
This man walks around in expensive suits, smoking cigars and talking like he's still living in 1995 while everybody around him is doing business through phones, cannabis shops and modern startups but underneath all that comedy is a pretty interesting crime story...
Dwight starts building his own little empire almost from scratch... He recruits people who aren't necessarily gangsters, including Tyson, Bodhi and Mitch, and somehow turns these random people into a crew. That's probably my favourite thing about the series...
The characters....Dwight isn't the only reason I kept watching... Martin Starr as Bodhi is hilarious. Jay Will as Tyson gives the story a younger perspective, and the relationship between Tyson and Dwight becomes one of the more interesting parts of the show...
Then there's Garrett Hedlund's Mitch, who brings another layer to the group. They're not your typical mafia crew. They're basically a bunch of people who somehow ended up following this old gangster because...
well, Dwight is Dwight and Stallone is clearly having fun... I think this is one of the best things about Tulsa King..
Stallone doesn't try too hard to prove that he can still be a tough guy.... He just plays Dwight with confidence..
There's something about watching him walk into a room, say very little and immediately make everybody uncomfortable and when Dwight gets angry?.. You already know somebody's day is about to get worse.
The show also balances crime with comedy surprisingly well... There are shootings, betrayals, rival gangs, FBI investigations and people getting killed. But then five minutes later, you're laughing because Dwight doesn't understand something about modern technology or he's arguing with somebody half his age. That balance gives Tulsa King its personality... It's not as dark and serious as The Sopranos, and I wouldn't compare it directly to something like The Wire.. It's more of a fun gangster fantasy and honestly, I think that's why it works...
Now, the show isn't perfect.. Not even close... Some of the storylines are extremely convenient...
There are moments where Dwight survives or escapes situations that would probably have ended very differently in real life. Some characters also feel underdeveloped, especially when the story introduces new enemies and side plots and sometimes the show feels like it is trying to do too many things at once...
That's something critics have pointed out too. Season 3, for example, was praised for Stallone's performance and its entertainment value but criticized for weaker subplots and underdeveloped supporting characters but honestly?... I didn't care that much because every time the story started getting messy, Dwight would show up and make things interesting again and that's the secret of Tulsa King..
Dwight Manfredi is the show... Without Stallone, I'm not sure this series would work nearly as well... He's funny without trying to be funny... He's intimidating without constantly shouting and there's something strangely wholesome about watching this hardened gangster slowly develop genuine relationships with the people around him...
You start the series thinking Dwight is just trying to build a criminal empire. But eventually, you realize he's also trying to build a new life.. He's been betrayed by the people he sacrificed everything for, he's lost 25 years of his life, and now he's trying to figure out what comes next... That gives the character more depth than I initially expected and I also love the fact that the series doesn't take itself too seriously...
Sometimes you just need a show where a 70-something-year-old Sylvester Stallone walks into a room wearing a perfect suit and basically says.. “This is my city now.”.. That's Tulsa King... It's violent, It's funny, It's sometimes completely ridiculous but it's entertaining and honestly, I'd rather watch a series that knows exactly what it wants to be than one that tries so hard to be serious that I start checking my phone halfway through...
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Rating: 78/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.
