TNT Goes Noir for Frank Darabont’s Mob City!

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One of the enduring film noir characters is the hard-boiled detective. Frank Darabont’s three-week event series Mob City (TNT, Wednesdays, 10/9C) is centered on a hard-boiled detective who manages to be both a lone wolf and a cop. It’s an intriguing variation – and Mob City is an intriguing series if such things can be judged by the two-hour premiere, A Guy Walks into a Bar/Reason to Kill a Man.

Written and directed by Darabont, the premiere introduces Joe Teague (Jon Bernthal), a police detective who finds himself being touted for a small, select squad of cops aiming to take down organized crime in 1947 Los Angeles. The series, based on John Buntin’s book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City, weaves fictional characters and historical figures in a multi-faceted tale of murder, mayhem and struggle.

Police Chief William Parker (Neal McDonough) has put together a squad, headed by Detective Hal Morrison (Jeffrey DeMunn) to end the criminal rampage of Ben ‘Bugsy’ Siegel (Ed Burns) and Mickey Cohen (Jeremy Luke). The premiere trips from the present of 1947 L.A. to other times and places to give us background on the main characters (for example, Siegel, Cohen and Sid Rothman as violin-playing small-timers making a move upwards; the three, as kids, trying to rob a theater), while introducing a blackmailing fifth-rate comic (Simon Pegg) and a beautiful photographer (Alexa Davalos) in a classy club, as well as assorted other not-quite-familiar characters.

Darabont clearly loves noir as much as he loves zombies: Mob City is replete with gorgeous dames in high class garb (and those nylons with the seams down the back); guys lurking in the shadows, smoking cigarettes; too bright days, sultry nights and cool jazz. Mob City is lovely to behold, but twisted just enough to show both the seductive and seamy sides of post-World War II L.A.

And secrets… everyone has secrets. Teague has an unexpected connection to a mob fixer named Ned Stax (Milo Ventimiglia); comic Hecky Nash (Simon Pegg) has an unexpected connection to Teague, who in turn, has yet another unexpected connection…

Almost any event from the premiere could lead to giving away some of the show’s big surprises, so I won’t even try to summarize past the teases already given. What’s important is that Mob City is a good example of noir, with its ambiguous characters, Dutch angles and exquisite lighting.

It’s well written; well-acted and very nicely directed. The music is amazing; the pacing is just deliberate enough to build suspense and explosive when it has to be. Bernthal’s narration is very Sam Spade – though his being a cop gives it a fresh twist.

If Mob City feels a bit too familiar at times (noir influences turn up all over the place, these days), it’s also surprising enough in its own way to make it well worth watching – and the cast really shines. I can’t remember the last time Burns was this good, and Bernthal really shines as Teague. There’s a feeling of the series being over-plotted, but that, too, is a very noir thing.

Final Grade: B+