Imagine if Guy Ritchie created a riveting new crime drama starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren, but instead of making it a film, he turned it into a TV series. Then imagine that it was somehow criminally overlooked and completely underhyped, largely because of its U.S. home on the worst major streaming service, Paramount+. Even the physical release is bungled, arriving only on DVD with no domestic Blu-ray release on the horizon. And yet, for the few who actually find this series, there’s one inescapable fact: MobLand is fantastic television.
Buy MoblandHardy stars as Harry da Souza, the principal fixer for a sprawling criminal family run by aging, hot-tempered don Conrad Harrigan (Brosnan). Harrigan’s scheming wife Maeve (Mirren) also has her hand in the family’s ongoing business and power struggles, running her own clandestine operations to further her web of deceit. The next generation is ready to take over, but the old-timers are showing no signs of relinquishing control, generating increasing friction in the family dynamics.
As if the family didn’t have enough on their plate, their foolish golden-boy grandson Eddie (Anson Boon) blithely murders the grandson of a rival clan headed by Richie Stevenson (Geoff Bell), triggering an escalating gang war as the families battle for revenge and supremacy. And then there are the cops and feds constantly sniffing around their illegal ventures, hoping to put them all away for good. Thankfully, the Harrigans have da Souza on their side, a masterful hired gun who always finds a way to pull the family out of whatever fire is most intense at any given time.
The series has obvious similarities to The Sopranos, but filtered through Ritchie’s unique lens and transplanted to the rustic, rolling hills of the Cotswolds region of England. Anchored by such top-notch talent that star Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon) is only fourth-billed, the typical gangster action is vastly elevated thanks to the show’s embarrassment of thespian riches. Hardy’s da Souza is both a menacing and calming presence, so adept at his job that he can solve most crises with diplomacy but also unafraid to methodically employ extreme violence in any setting to get his way. Brosnan plays Conrad as a wildcard, getting surprisingly thrilling mileage out of playing a vengeful, illogical tyrant with a hair trigger. And finally, Mirren delights with Maeve’s underhanded attempts to be the true power in the family, even as she dutifully plays the doting wife and matriarch.
As the season progresses, players are eliminated and added to the board, with new threats around every corner and an even greater force coming into focus in the final episodes. The large, multigenerational Harrigan clan is a fascinating hotbed of scheming internecine warfare, but also fully united against their common enemies, with da Souza acting as omnipotent overwatch even as he deals with his own family issues. And this isn’t a case where the top draws just swan in occasionally like a Taylor Sheridan series, with the esteemed veterans Brosnan and Mirren instead fully engaged and integral to every episode. It’s thrilling to watch the fantastic talent chew through the delectable mobster dialogue and scenes, forging another triumph in Ritchie’s empire of uniquely British crime dramas.
The DVD set spreads Season One’s ten episodes across three discs housed in a standard case with slipcase. Image quality is mostly passable, but the high quality of the production begs for at least Blu-ray fidelity. Sound is offered in 5.1 Dolby Digital, with suitable immersion in the many bone-crunching action scenes.
With Season Two now underway on Paramount+, and Season Three already greenlit with or without Hardy, the new DVD set offers an alternate access point to get caught up on the shady ongoing adventures of the Harrigan clan.
