The Worst Film Ever

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Good points: the acting is fine and the CGI period locations successfully evoke the sense that 'this is how it happened', even if it didn't. It's also useful to be able to put faces to names in the timeline of the growth of the US Mafia, which is confusing on the page. And Eliot Ness was indeed a hapless drunk who didn't bring Capone down at all.Bad points: the whole thing has a continuous chugging cello soundtrack, repeated use of the same establishing shots (no matter how long or far apart), and even use of the same incidental scenes and locations for completely different events. This reminds me of a really, really cheap cartoon series.Some of the talking heads are Sopranos actors - how this qualifies them to be authorities on the Mob escapes me - and combined with the music, the repeated cut scenes and Ray Liotta's intense narration (he left the Chicago series to someone just as mean-sounding) - makes the whole thing come across like Gordon Ramsay's Hotel Nightmares set in gangster Chicago or NY. "Al Capone must now run a huge criminal organization single-handed!!!" "Miraculously, Lucky Luciano survives!!!"Also, the actors, while they do a great job and have a vague resemblance to their counterparts, are simply too glamorous for a supposed historical series. The quickest Google of Mafia gangster images will tell you that these wise guys were singularly ordinary-looking, which helped them stayed under the radar. In this, Al Capone is a handsome heavy-set guy with dark eyes and a Roman nose, and Lucky Luciano is almost an Al Pacino lookalike (only tall). Naah.

With such excellent source material this had the potential to be awesome. It was good but could have been better. It's easy to follow and the story runs along at a nice pace without too much repetition from earlier eps. Unfortunately, the script and acting are a bit unconvincing at times. The comments are insightful and assist. It really is a good story, Just could have been a bit more polished.

As others have pointed out, this series is so full of inaccuracies that you probably would be better off watching re-runs of the old "Untouchables" with Robert Stack for historical context. Some examples:Dion O'Banion was not killed from across the room by the two gunmen who entered his flower shop. One of the men reached out to shake hands with him and held his gun hand while the other man pumped lead into him.In one scene, which is supposed to take place in 1925, there is a 1938 Chevy coupe in the background.Johnny Torrio was not shot in the street while out shopping with his wife. He was gunned down in the front yard of his home.Whoever got AMC to green light this nonsense must have bought a helluva lunch.

I've only just viewed the first episode of this mini-series last night, but, I'm happy with what I saw and have high hopes that this is going to be monumental by covering new information, or, adding new information to old events.So far in this first episode, this has pretty-much followed along with the movie "Mobsters" (1991) starring Christian Slater (and, both complement one another).I believe that this is going to be a very good series so long as it doesn't continue to repeat events and occurrences that have been shown over and over again in so many documentaries and movies before this over the years.I enjoyed this first episode.