I'm a fan of Steve Van Zandt, both from his appearances in The Sopranos and from his years with the E Street Band. The premise of the series was good too, an ex-Mafioso on witness protection in the wilds of Norway attempting to navigate the countries PC culture and build a not-too-honest future.
This whole fish-out-of-water concept had the makings of a sort of Sopranos/Fargo hybrid. All good so far, right?
Unfortunately, a good series needs a good concept, writing, acting and execution. Lilyhammer has the concept but everything else is missing.
The storyline quit frankly is ludicrous. Everything just happens through a series of unbelievable coincidences. I could list a dozen or more totally implausible occurrences in the first few episodes alone, but don't want to introduce spoilers. And as for the love interest...When the series was first aired in 2012, Steve Van Zandt was 62 and Marian Saastad Ottesen was 36. Can you really believe a Norwegian blonde would fall far a man who's shorter than her and 26 years older?
Regarding the acting, I know that most of the supporting cast had to contend with playing characters that were essentially wooden caricatures with no depth, but still.. quite a lot of the acting was pretty amateurish unfortunately. And that includes you Steve. Mafia tough guy seems to be the beginning and end of your acting skills, with no subtlety or variation to the hunched shoulders and knowing nods, a bit like "mafia guy by numbers" acting.
The execution was pretty poor too. I have no problem with subtitled movies, but found the constant chopping between spoken English and subtitles jarring and confusing. Quite a bit of the dialogue was switching between languages mid-sentence, resulting in not knowing whether to listen, look or both. For me it simply didn't work. Also, the cuts between scenes didn't work for me either, appearing haphazard with little thought or consideration of transition.
As I said at the beginning, I really wanted to like this series. Unfortunately for me it fell short on so many levels, and most especially on not having a coherent or plausible storyline, that I can only rate it two stars, both of which I'm essentially awarding for the concept. Apart from that I'd consign the series to "sleeping with the fishes" as they say in the Mafia.
Unfortunately, a good series needs a good concept, writing, acting and execution. Lilyhammer has the concept but everything else is missing.
The storyline quit frankly is ludicrous. Everything just happens through a series of unbelievable coincidences. I could list a dozen or more totally implausible occurrences in the first few episodes alone, but don't want to introduce spoilers. And as for the love interest...When the series was first aired in 2012, Steve Van Zandt was 62 and Marian Saastad Ottesen was 36. Can you really believe a Norwegian blonde would fall far a man who's shorter than her and 26 years older?
Regarding the acting, I know that most of the supporting cast had to contend with playing characters that were essentially wooden caricatures with no depth, but still.. quite a lot of the acting was pretty amateurish unfortunately. And that includes you Steve. Mafia tough guy seems to be the beginning and end of your acting skills, with no subtlety or variation to the hunched shoulders and knowing nods, a bit like "mafia guy by numbers" acting.
The execution was pretty poor too. I have no problem with subtitled movies, but found the constant chopping between spoken English and subtitles jarring and confusing. Quite a bit of the dialogue was switching between languages mid-sentence, resulting in not knowing whether to listen, look or both. For me it simply didn't work. Also, the cuts between scenes didn't work for me either, appearing haphazard with little thought or consideration of transition.
As I said at the beginning, I really wanted to like this series. Unfortunately for me it fell short on so many levels, and most especially on not having a coherent or plausible storyline, that I can only rate it two stars, both of which I'm essentially awarding for the concept. Apart from that I'd consign the series to "sleeping with the fishes" as they say in the Mafia.