Tuesday, May 04, 2010
The Last Don
While I was home rewatched Mario Puzo’s Last Don Mini-Series. Although it parallels the Godfather books and movies in spirit this is an independent storyline. The two series are narrated by Danny Aiello who plays the old Don, but the title character is played by Jason Gedrick who has been a favourite of mine since his days in Iron Eagle, Rooftops, Murder One and the Canadian movie Stacking. Despite his good looks and pretty boy expressive face the kind of stardom some of his contemporaries have enjoyed has eluded him. To quote his character Cross DeLena in this mafia series, the die was cast the day he was born and no matter what efforts are made to keep him free from the family business he keeps getting drawn back in.
More resembling HBO’s The Sopranos than the earlier Godfather series The Last Don presents organized crime families as likable sympathetic individuals who suffer stresses and human tragedies and joys just like the rest of us. By contrast law enforcement officials are presented as corrupt, untrustworthy and easily bought. No effort is made to sugar coat what these people are about but the blood splatter and gore is kept to a minimum and we are not shown flying body parts. Although the menace is palpable it is not exploited as a means of making the audience uncomfortable. This was, after all, a series made for television audiences. Crime in one form or another may be the family business but the perpetrators have a principled approach to it and do their best to ensure their minions don’t step out of line.
There is a matter of fact approach to the fact that Cross’s father is the family enforcer but for the most part we are not shown the executions he orchestrates and even those we do have the violence minimized on screen. The greatest conflict in the series is internal to the family which sees the brothers murder their sister’s husband and family on their wedding night, sparing their sister with disastrous consequences for all. Rich as they may be this family is imprisoned in their family compound, it may be a comfortable prison, but it is no less guarded and confining.
