Frank Swietek

A muddled mixture of mystery, tearjerker, and sermonizing about forgiveness, writer-director Keoni Waxman’s faith-based drama, based on a novel by Robert Pascuzzi, is overpopulated with both characters and homilies. The catalyst is the suicide of Danny Turner (Peter Facinelli), who drives his SUV off a cliff while simultaneously shooting himself in the head with a shotgun.

Ever since it ended with an ambiguous blackout in 2007, fans of The Sopranos have wondered whether series creator David Chase would have more to say about the New Jersey mob family. The death of the indispensable James Gandolfini in 2013 made the idea of a sequel unthinkable, so Chase has instead opted for a prequel. A high-school-age Tony is played by Gandolfini’s son Michael in a tale explaining how he became the conflicted, troubled mob boss of the HBO hit.

Director Agustí Villaronga's third theatrical film, following 1986’s In a Glass Cage and 1989’s Moon Child, began in 1996. He reveals in the ten-minute 2018 interview that is one of the bonus features of this release that it was not originally a feature but the pilot of a proposed television series. When financial difficulties doomed the project, he refashioned it as a big-screen release.