‘MobLand’ series review: Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren preside over this messy, magnetic enterprise

Pierce Brosnan and Tom Hardy in a still from ‘MobLand’
| Photo Credit: Paramount+

What do gangsters do to fill their days when they are not torturing and killing people? That is what is uppermost on one’s mind while watching Ronan Bennett’s MobLand. Apart from one gang member who works in a garage, the rest of the thugs just seem to hang about their lairs or stand behind their bosses to form a fearsome pyramid.

The Harrigans are an established and powerful London crime family, with the up-and-coming Stevensons snapping at their heels. When Eddie (Anson Boon), grandson of Harrigan patriarch, Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) kills Tommy, the son of the Stevenson gang leader, Richie (Geoff Bell), it is time to let slip the dogs of war or better still call on Harry (Tom Hardy), the Harrigan family fixer. He says his job “is to predict the future, anticipate problems proactively and deal with unseen events.” And he does it admirably. 

Harry is more or less married to the mob much to his wife, Jan’s (Joanne Froggatt) dismay and daughter, Gina’s (Teddie Allen) disgust. At the beck and call of Conrad and his formidable wife, Maeve, (Helen Mirren) Harry works with his best friend, Kevin (Paddy Considine), the younger Harrigan son and Eddie’s father. 

Everyone in the Harrigan family is running their particular agendas. There is Kevin’s wife and Eddie’s mum, Bella (Lara Pulver) working a scheme to get a member of the Home office to meet with a Syrian arms dealer through her well-connected father.

Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren in a still from ‘MobLand’
| Photo Credit:
Paramount+

The elder Harrigan son, Brendan, (Daniel Betts), after a series of deals gone wrong, and desperate to win his father’s approval, goes to Antwerp to buy rubies. He takes the help of his half-sister, Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon), Conrad’s illegitimate daughter, and gem expert.

The police on the trail of the Harrigans include DS Ivan Fisk (Luke Mably) and DC Yvonne Mukasa (Gemma Knight Jones) and Alice (Emily Barber), an undercover police officer who befriends Jan in a bid to get information about the Harrigans. When they hit a road block, Colin (Toby Jones) is brought back from retirement to assist.

A bid to get into the fentanyl market means dealing with cartel king, Jaime (Jordi Mollà), who has a difficult history with Conrad and Kat (Janet McTeer), who controls Jaime. The episodes zip by in a flurry of sex, drugs, torture, death and an excellent wardrobe. MobLand is more in Guy Ritchie’s wheelhouse (he directed the first two episodes and also is one of the executive producers) than the dismal Fountain of Youth.

There is a sense of Shakespearean drama in MobLand — from Conrad being compared to Henry VIII and Maeve being a shoe-in for Lady Macbeth, to sibling rivalry and paternity.

Tom Hardy in a still from ‘MobLand’
| Photo Credit:
Paramount+

While a lot has been said about Mirren and Brosnan’s accents, (and it is distracting) there is no denying both have had a time of their lives as the psychotic couple weaving their warped webs around anyone who comes into their orbit.

Brosnan’s lascivious, coarse Conrad is as far from the suave James Bond as possible as is Mirren’s volatile, conniving Maeve. 

In middle of the Grand Guignol, Hardy’s Harry goes quietly about his business, even though his poker face is put under considerable strain at Conrad and Maeve’s outlandish declarations.

Unlike Bennett’s The Day of the Jackal, plot points are tacked on arbitrarily and some of the dialogue is rather ripe — Conrad telling Maeve “devil’s bile runs in your veins” is just one example. MobLand, however, makes up for these minuses with excellent performances, frames and music.

MobLand is currently streaming on Jio Hotstar