MobLand, the crime families drama with Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren in front of the camera and Guy Ritchie executive producing, is Paramount+’s second most popular original series ever – so Paramount+ has made its creators and stars an offer they can’t refuse: MobLand will be back for a second season.
One of the best Paramount+ shows has spent five consecutive weeks in Nielsen’s original streaming series top 10 and has racked up more than 26 million global viewers already, making it the second most-watched original series behind Landman.
Paramount Global CEO Chris McCarthy (one of the firm’s three CEOs) says that the firm is “elated” to give season 2 the green light. It’s a “global phenomenon” that has “dominated” domestic and international charts, including soaring to number one in the UK.
Is MobLand worth watching?
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The setup isn’t exactly out-there – two rival mob families clash, causing carnage – but the cast is great: in addition to Hardy, Brosnan and Mirren there’s Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Geoff Bell, Daniel Betts, Lisa Dwan and Emily Barber.
Reviewing the first two episodes, Empire Magazine said: “Not even direction from Guy Ritchie – on more sophisticated form than normal – can entirely elevate a somewhat by-the-numbers story that will feel familiar to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the genre. Showrunner Ronan Bennett is on capable form here though, even if MobLand is yet to hit the heights of his other notable shows, including Top Boy and last year’s The Day of the Jackal.“
I love The Indian Express’s description of it as “a soap opera for boys… derivative but decidedly entertaining” because that sums up the consensus: as NPR puts it, “This isn’t a perfect crime drama… But the overly convoluted plot is spiced by glorious, scenery-chewing performances from Pierce Brosnan, as the family’s profane, brogue-spewing patriarch Conrad Harrigan, and Helen Mirren.” You know you want to see that.
I’ll be honest: my quality bar for gangster dramas is pretty low, providing you make it entertaining – so for example I inhaled all three seasons of Gangs of London, which often struck me as a telenovela with assault weapons, because it’s an undemanding, entertaining and often hilarious thing to watch after a long day. This seems to be very much in the same vein, and Empire isn’t the only review to suggest at least some similarities with Top Boy. And that’s enough to rocket it right to the top of my watch list.
The first season of Mobland is streaming now on Paramount+.
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