On the occasion of the Disney Investor Day from 10 December 2020, The Walt Disney Company officially announced the arrival of Star, the new product category that enriches the already vast catalog of the streaming platform Disney + with a large number of movies and TV series aimed at a more mature audience, branded Disney, 20th Century FOX, ABC, Searchlight and many others. This new section, which will be introduced in the Disney home platform starting from the next February 23 2021, will also include 5 Star Original, ie content arriving exclusively through the new service, among which we can also find Godfather of Harlem, the series published by the US television channel Epix which tells the true story of Bumpy Johnson, the "Godfather" of the black Harlem mafia. The series, directed by Chris Brancato (known for working on The X-Files, Law and Order, Hannibal and co-creating Narcos) and Paul cornerstone, consists of ten episodes with an average length of one hour and will be available on Star since its launch. We've had a chance to preview the first three episodes of Godfather of Harlem, and now we're ready to tell you what we think.
Harlem, 1963
The television series begins in 1963, showing us the release of Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker), in his fifties, after a period of detention that lasted more than 10 years in the Alcatraz Penitentiary Institute. The return of Harlem's undisputed boss is greeted by an elegant party in the luxurious apartment that his wife Mayme Johnson (Ilfenesh Hadera) insured for them in the Lenox Terrace skyscrapers. The joyful atmosphere with the clear reference to The Godfather is interrupted when Johnson is informed of the conditions of the neighborhood, threatened by the rise of the gangsters who have slowly gained power in the course of his absence. Spanish crime families are invading the heroin trade, and competition is increasing the number of drug addicts on the streets of Harlem.
His new nemesis is the Gigante, an Italian crime family with which Bumby will be forced to fight to regain his territory and restore balance to the inner neighborhood, forging a singular alliance with the political preacher Malcolm X (Nigél Thatch), one of the most prominent figures of the period. Much of the narrative will focus precisely on their escalation of battles, between armed conflicts, clashes full of insults and fights to the death, all embellished by the incredible interpretations of Forest Whitaker and Vincent D'Onofrio, respectively in the role of Bumpy Johnson and Vincent “Chin” Gigante, the former boxer and exponent of the Giant family, and in the evocative setting of one of the most culturally rich and fascinating neighborhoods in the world in an unrepeatable era.
Between history and fiction
The power of Godfather of Harlem, in addition to the wonderful interpretation of the main protagonists, lies precisely in its being able to perfectly recreate the evocative setting of Harlem, one of the most representative and characteristic neighborhoods of New York, in the historical epoch that is best able to tell its story. Between the intimate and welcoming jazz clubs and the rich cultural heritage of the African American community, the title manages to immerse us in a unique and fascinating context, full of references and history. Precisely for this reason, the settings that are shown to us and the colonna sonora accompanying us throughout the narrative are two of the main strengths of the series, able to transport us and make us feel an integral part of an incredibly suggestive environment.
To be able to do this in the best way, Godfather of Harlem mixes perfectly historical and political events with elements of pure fiction, to try to tell the broader story of social justice in the early 60s for the African American community, using real-life characters from the neighborhood's history, including gangster Bumpy Johnson, Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (Giancarlo Esposito), and narrating the way their stories crossed with those of some of the most famous New York mobsters such as Vincent "Chin" Gigante, Frank Costello (Paul Sorvino), Joe Bonanno (Chazz Palminteri) and many others. What we are faced with is absolutely not meant to be a true historical representation, but rather poses itself as a fascinating fictional story of mafia, weapons, drugs, money, women and wars for the territory, which lays the foundations on real events and skillfully mixes them with fiction.
Harlem is mine
Godfather of Harlem partially abandons the traditional canons that characterize all those productions that over the years have told us about gangsters and their stories, broadening their horizons and allowing the narration to deal with some issues that still are today extremely current. In this case, in fact, the classic elements of these products join the story of the civil rights claim of African Americans, addressing them not on the basis of the historical context that surrounds the characters, but also in relation to the context of the mafia and the gang that sees them as protagonists. Despite being set and exclusively telling the "events" in the 60s, Godfather of Harlem still manages to seem incredibly current also relevant for the dramatic events that in recent years, and especially during 2020, have continued to shake America and the whole world.
The series captures the turmoil of the early 60s, with the civil rights movement marching through violence in Harlem, in the midst of the drug crisis that continues to spread more and more easily on the streets, and whose residents continue to habitually endure. police brutality. There can be no better setting than Harlem to make us participate in all this, taking advantage of the many facets of the famous neighborhood to speak on behalf of the entire African American community, even fifty years after the events narrated. Godfather of Harlem is therefore an excellent product to officially introduce us to Disney + Star, a section dedicated to productions aimed at a more adult audience. Violence and adrenaline skilfully alternate with moments full of drama, topicality and tension, making the product something much deeper than other productions that tell the stories of gangs, gangsters, drugs, money and blood..
