Tulsa King Review: Sylvester Stallone Gets a Tailor-Made Star Vehicle From Taylor Sheridan
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The post Tulsa King Review: Sylvester Stallone Gets a Tailor-Made Star Vehicle From Taylor Sheridan appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: Over the past several years, Taylor Sheridan has found himself a nice little niche making hours and hours of great dad TV, specifically the hit Paramount Network series Yellowstone and its accompanying spinoffs. But one underlying quirk of his output is also his ability to bring high-level stars to TV to his original series: Kevin Costner in Yellowstone, Jeremy Renner in Mayor of Kingstown, Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in the upcoming 1923, and now Sylvester Stallone in Tulsa King.
Stallone swaggers onto the screen in the new Paramount+ series as Dwight Manfredi, a one-time capo who just completed 25 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, keeping his mouth shut out of loyalty to his boss. But upon his release, he doesn’t receive quite the homecoming he was looking for, as the family’s new underboss Charles “Chickie” Invernizzi (Domenick Lombardozzi) decides to reward his loyalty by shipping him off to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Dwight can set up business for the organization.
Recognizing the assignment for what it is — banishment — Dwight heads out to Tulsa anyway, and begins the process of rebuilding his life as a free man, while also discovering what kinds of opportunities are possible for a business-minded man who isn’t afraid to use a little violence to get what he wants.
Escape to Victory: Casting Stallone as the lead in a mafia story feels like an easy sell, despite it being something he’s done very rarely over the course of his career — in between the Rockys and Rambos and cop projects, perhaps the only notable instance of him playing in this genre is the 1991 comedy Oscar, which was not well-received. (Oh, but he did play Mafioso #2 in the 1976 comedy Cannonball!)
Dwight as a character is a curious nut, as there are times when his ruthlessness isn’t so charming — it’s one thing when he decks a surly capo or racist car salesman, another thing when he mets out violence against those less deserving. His whole purpose in coming to Tulsa is essentially to bring mafia business practices to a community unfamiliar with them; it’s one thing to relate to his plight, but it’s another to watch him exhort people who were just living their lives before he came to town.
That said, this premise is tailor-made to fit his persona, and Sheridan and executive producer Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire) know where the chief pleasures of this story lie: The opportunity to watch a made man contend with not just how the world has changed over the last 25 years, but a city whose understanding of “organized crime” is entirely limited to gangster movies.
Tulsa King (Paramount+)
The nuances of this are given plenty of engaging detail — for example, his expired driver’s license means he can’t get a credit card — that also help sell the specifics of Dwight’s situation. Unfortunately, there are some pitfalls to the stranger-in-a-strange-land/man-out-of-time concept, like a seemingly inevitable but still disappointingly cliche rant about the kids and their pronouns these days. But Stallone’s a damn star for a reason, and Sheridan and Winter have calibrated this series to make sure he shines brighter than ever.
The Expendables: The supporting cast includes Martin Starr as the owner of a marijuana dispensary that becomes the first business Dwight “offers” to “protect” (proof that Dwight is no dummy, given that it’s a cash-only operation), as well as Jay Will as Tyson, a cab driver who Dwight hires to drive him around town. The growing connection between Dwight and Tyson is just one of the show’s many welcome human touches — also appealing is Andrea Savage as Stacy, who encounters Dwight one night at a bar and is later shocked to learn his actual age is 75. (Her guess had been “a hard 55.”)
Thanks to the cinematography (the first two episodes are credited to Cameron Duncan, whose previous credits include Preacher and Cobra Kai), Tulsa and its surrounding area are rendered as a effectively captures as the nexus point for the unending vastness of Middle America. There’s a grimness to the show’s depiction of endless wide open prairies and also endless strip malls and chain restaurants; neither Dwight or Tulsa King seem capable of finding much beauty there, and it’s at least interesting to see such a strong visual take on the setting.
The Verdict: Tulsa King because of how fully-formed around Stallone the show feels: Not only is Tulsa King the platonic ideal of a star showcase, but it serves as a whole thesis statement on Stallone’s persona over the years. Every detail feels driven to drive… maybe not sympathy, but certainly empathy, for a man whose goodness remains unsure at this stage.
With only two episodes provided for review, the biggest question mark hovering over Tulsa King at this point is how deep and dark it’s capable of going, and whether Stallone (an actor who has always had a pretty tight grasp over his star persona) might be pushed outside his comfort zone into some truly vulnerable territory. The potential is there, as we watch Dwight grapple with the blunt reality of his situation — no home, no family, no community — with some genuinely sad moments in the mix. But we can also see, through his eyes, the potential that Tulsa might have for him. And, by extension, the potential that this show offers.
Where to Watch: Tulsa King debuts Sunday, November 13th on Paramount+. New episodes drop weekly.
Trailer:
Tulsa King Review: Sylvester Stallone Gets a Tailor-Made Star Vehicle From Taylor Sheridan
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