The Mob Doctor: Familiar, but different

Creator(s): Josh Berman and Rob Wright

Network/Writer(s): FOX/Josh Berman and Rob Wright

Director: Michael Dinner

Actors: Jordana Spiro, William Forsythe, Zach Gilford, Zeljiko Ivanek, Michael Rapaport

Tagline/Summary: A young thoracic surgeon becomes indebted to the South Chicago mafia and is forced to moonlight as a mob doctor, while also working full time at Chicago's most prominent hospital.

***

[NOTE: This review may contain spoilers, so please watch the show before reading, or don't.]

When creating a show from a genre that is usually restrictive and easy to fall into stereotypes, it is difficult for a writer to create a strong character without it feeling recycled. And when this show is centered around organized crime, comparisons are always unfairly made to the "Godfather", and more recently the "Sopranos", but "The Mob Doctor" finds a way to introduce a tough character -- female, no less -- while not forgetting her human element.

Jordana Spiro plays Dr. Grace Devlin, a highly-skilled young surgeon who was raised in the gritty Southside in Chicago. Her character's twist, which is also the hook of the show, is that she's currently working off her brother's debt to Chicago mob boss Paul Moretti (Rapaport) by preforming medical procedures on his goons. Grace appears to have everything under control until the FBI's star witness against former boss, Constantine Alexander (Forsythe), shows up at her hospital in need of heart surgery. And in the one predictiable element of the pilot (it was mentioned in the trailer), Moretti tells her to kill him.

From this point forward, Grace's nuances are almost perfectly laid out, and terrifically performed by Spiro. In the 44 minute pilot, Grace is shown to have a deep attachment to her patients, influence over certain co-workers, and the confidence in risk taking. The last point is emphasized by the way she cares for her first patient and why she's picked to perform the surgery on the Government witness. And will most likely lead to some tough situations later on.

The episode's writing provides most of this information through natural conversations, and show not tell moments. The only element not shown, or at the least blurted out in a line of dialogue is: Why's she given the latitude to do what she wants even though she's apparently only a resident? This is probably explained more in the book which the show is based on ("Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor" by Rob Felber), but it was the one thing I kept thinking about.

After removing that one flaw, everything else is pretty solid. Spiro, who I fell in love with on "My Boys", looks like a good choice for the conflicted doctor, and it was nice to see Zach Gilford again -- he plays Grace's boyfriend Dr. Brett Robinson. I'm sort of partial to ex-"Friday Night Lights" cast members, and was disappointed by his role in "Off the Map" so its good that Saracen is still getting work. Every show needs a good villain, and Forsythe fills this role to perfection.

The Mob Doctor passes the biggest test I have with pilots: Do I understand the concept of the show by the end of the episode? This is critical because you can have the best actors in the world and the greatest directed episode, but if your audience doesn't understand the conflicts and how they may come up in the future, then most people -- myself included -- will lose interest quickly. Obviously, I'm not saying you need to spell out every single plot point for season 1 in the first 60 minutes, but give me enough to get hooked.

If you do this, does it mean your show will be great? No. My two favorite examples are "The Black Donnellys" and "Life Unexpected". Both pilots passed with flying colors and rank in my top-10 of all-time, but they quickly fell off a cliff. As always, Episodes 2 and 3 are the most important, you need to completely hook your audience or your ratings will drop, which is why most early cancellation happen within the first 4-to-5 episodes; expand the world, develop the characters and stay consistent in your storytelling.

After going in skeptical, "The Mob Doctor" showed the elequence needed to maintained the balance between the craziness of organized crime plots and character development, which is essential for a series to be successful. For inspiration, the show's creative team only needs to look at another Fox show, "Fringe", to see what this balance look like.

Rating: 7/10

Rewatchability: Moderately High

Day 58 -- Tresspass

Released: October 14th, 2011

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Nicole Kidman, Cam Gigandet, Ben Mendelsohn, Jordana Spiro

Writer/Director: Karl Gajdusek/Joel Schumacher

Description: As they're held for ransom, a husband and wife's predicament grows more dire amid the discovery of betrayal and deception.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

After watching a film that showcased Cage's skills as an actor, it was disappointing to follow that up with a borderline unwatchable film. The home invasion movies are always dumb because there's only so much story you can tell in one location. "Panic Room" is the closest to being a good story for this sub-genre.

"Trespass" is a limited release film that really shouldn't have been green-lit to begin with. There are no original ideas to be found in the 90-plus minute running time. Even the attempted twist are poorly thought out and become convoluted by the end of the film. The most impressive one was rendered moot by the final twist.

The Miller family is held for ransom in the home by four thugs that all have their own motives. While in theory this is appears to be a fresh take, the execution is poor. The leader is there to pay off a debt, his brother is in love with Sarah (Kidman), his girlfriend is a junkie, and a hired gun of the dealer that the leader owes money, and they don't add another more depth to the characters. There are feigned attempts to add back story, but each one is dumber and more predictable than the last. 

It didn't help that none of the actors that played the thugs were any good. Jordana Spiro, who I absolutely loved in "My Boys", was completely miscast as the junkie girlfriend, and Cam Gigandet looked like he was going to cry the entire movie, which was awful for that character. In Gigandet's case, I wonder if he thought being on the verge of crying was a good why to show a psychotic break, but it was a terrible choice nonetheless. The leader played by Ben Mendelsohn was really bad, and his shouting matches with Cage made laugh instead of feel tense.

Acting is only one piece of a poorly constructed film, writing is probably the biggest one, and this script should have been lit on fire. The dialogue held no consequence and the conflicts were more forced than natural. There were way too many twist in the plot, and at no point did you feel the villains could get away with it. But it didn't start so bad, the first "shocking" moment was that Kyle (Cage) had nothing in his safe, and was broke. This was different, but they threw it away by having Gigandet find a stack of money hidden in an unfinished wall. Talk about cliché.

The look of the film was boring as well. The Miller's lived in this beautiful modern house that was barely shown off, and the rooms shown were dark and bleak. I'm sure the movie's tone was part of the reason for this, but during the first act, they had ample time to display their wealth. Also, they gave us no reason to believe that the dealer's hired goon wouldn't have killed everyone after learning that Kyle had nothing in the safe. There was no reason for his mercy, especially after we learned that they had already recovered the lost drugs. All around poor job of story telling.

On the Cage front, he did his recent line reading choice of either screaming or whispering every line of dialogue. I assume his character was supposed to be a hustler, but Nick kept fluctuating him between a crazy person and someone scared shitless. Even for 21st century Cage, this was an awful decision. 

"Trespass" was a bad attempt to be a psychological action thriller. Even "The Ref" had more tension than this movie. It's a shame, Cage and Kidman have reached that point in their careers where they mail in performances to get paycheck, but here we are. This is the perfect example of a movie ruined because of its lack of a strong supporting cast, and should reenforce to every director and casting department that it's more than the marquee names that make a film watchable.

 Rating: 3.5/10 -- Terrible, terrible movie. It was essentially 90 minutes of screaming and Nick Cage in over-sized glasses. The character of the daughter was vastly under used and really could have been left out, which again points to both bad writing and bad casting.