Netflix, Stick to Other People's Flicks

As far back as I can remember, I've always been a sucker for gangster movies. Growing up as a short bespectacled kid with no athletic abilities, watching Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro get respect for pulling scams and whacking badder guys was very empowering. One of my first DVDs was Casino (I must've watched the cornfield scene too many times to be considered healthy). I followed The Sopranos like a devout pilgrim, going as far as following the production crew film the final episodes in New Jersey and talking Twin Peaks with the show's creator. So when I saw the first teaser trailer for Netflix's first original series Lilyhammer, complete with Steven Van Zandt doing his goomba act backed up by The Rolling Stones, I felt my Sicilian sense tingling.

Unfortunately, this show is not very good.

Backed by the Norwegian government and undoubtedly greenlit by the phrase “New York gangster goes into the witness protection program, chooses Lillehammer after being inspired by the 1994 Olympics”, the series stars Steven Van Zandt (The Sopranos and The E Street Band) as Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano doing just that. He learns Norwegian too quickly to be believable, has no problem understanding the language yet barely speaks it himself. Taking on a new name, Giovanni Henriksen, he continues his mafia schtick – buying a club, starting a criminal enterprise, shacking up with a blonde teacher, etc. At no point does Van Zandt let up his act or show a hint of character, backstory, anything. He's simply playing Silvio from The Sopranos, a show that the creators undeniably love and are trying to replicate with disappointing results (even the title sequence is a visual reference to that superior series).

I don't want to say that the show is unwatchable, but serious mafia movie aficionados may want to look elsewhere. There's little to no mob violence, the characters are one-note, and Giovanni makes no compelling choices that define him as a character, besides being an old-school gangster who enjoys the breathtaking landscapes featured in Lillehammer. But the pilot features a great homage to the classic “kill the guy and bury his body” trope from most gangster flicks, where Giovanni and his cohorts shoot a violent wolf (which they're not legally allowed to kill due to hunting laws) and they dump its body under a frozen lake.

Netflix is a company that's been a game-changer in terms of how we consume media, effectively putting Blockbuster out of business and ending the days of physically returning rented movies to the store. So when they announced Lilyhammer as their first original series, the expectations went through the roof. But they didn't commission the show, they simply bought it from a Norwegian company (Rubicon, who has a company logo at the end of the credits that's too silly to be taken seriously) and put all eight episodes available to stream.

If you're looking for a light show with splashes of Norwegian culture, give Lilyhammer a shot. But for complex-serialized-drama junkies looking for a new fix, try HBO's Luck.

Lilyhammer's entire first season is available to stream on Netflix and has already been renewed for a second season.

God help us all.