The Westies Review: Prestige Crime Genre Missing a Live Wire

If you love the organized crime genre, MGM+’s new streaming series The Westies should scratch that itch, even if the genre feels oversaturated almost every year. The show reminds me of the many wannabes that followed The Sopranos phenomenon at the turn of the century, when series like The Black Donnellys, Kingpin, and Smith tried to recreate the magic of David Chase’s landmark drama. However, network restrictions often gave fans a sanitized version of what they deserved.

Very rarely, with the exceptions of Boardwalk Empire and the unfairly underseen and underappreciated Brotherhood, has television come close to the gold standard of crime-series storytelling. The Westies, for all its grit and tenacity, is missing a key piece of what made those other shows so great: a magnetic, scene-stealing performance that makes you afraid to look away. Almost shockingly, that is because the show’s biggest name is miscast in a role that desperately needs a live wire.

The Westies follows two rival criminal organizations, one Irish and one Italian, as they look to profit from an upcoming construction project in Hell’s Kitchen. To make the deal work, the two sides call a fragile truce. That peace quickly unravels when one of Eamon Sweeney’s (J.K. Simmons) young soldiers abducts a captain (Michael Rispoli) in John Gotti’s (Daredevil: Born Again’s Hamish Allan-Headley) organization, putting the entire arrangement at risk.

What is MGM+’s The Westies about?

Eamon mentors these young men, molding his most prized enforcer and mentee, Jimmy (Black Box’s Tom Brittney), before asking him to “handle” the situation. However, when Jimmy fails to do what needs to be done, Eamon takes matters into his own hands. This causes a rift between the old guard and the new, especially for Jimmy’s best friend, Mickey (Stanley Morgan), who is fresh out of a hospital after receiving shock treatment at a time when post-traumatic stress disorder was still in its infancy as a diagnosis.

Those are the carrots, so here is the stick. That would be Officer Glenn Keenan (Bosch’s Titus Welliver), who walks the beat in the old neighborhood where he grew up with Eamon, a man now on his payroll. Glenn’s life is turned upside down when he discovers his estranged son is working for Eamon, who refuses to cut him loose. When his son is targeted by an FBI agent (Jessica Frances Dukes), Glenn is forced to bring down the Westies of Hell’s Kitchen before his son becomes collateral damage.

MGM+’s The Westies comes from creators Chris Brancato and Michael Panes, which makes its shortcomings especially disappointing, given that both collaborated on Godfather of Harlem. Brancato also helped create the landmark streaming crime franchise Narcos and Narcos: Mexico. Those efforts felt alive, filled with tension and suspense, while also transcending the genre with eye-opening themes that went beyond simple notions of right and wrong.

MGM+’s The Westies Review

The very best crime dramas explore something that goes beyond turf wars, betrayals, and bloodshed. By contrast, the series feels like it is always retreating into safety, rarely writing itself into a corner or taking a big swing. Characters take unnecessary, head-scratching risks to create conflict, rather than letting them arise organically. Then, there is a theme of guilt over relationships that create drama that are, frankly, unearned. That mainly has to do with J.K. Simmons’ character.

Simmons portrays Eamon as a conflicted, tough-love father figure, yet he allows his underlings to question him without consequences. You are never afraid of him, not for a second. Simmons, so good in Whiplash, plays him more like everyone’s favorite uncle than a feared crime boss. You cannot kill your own soldiers one minute and come across as spineless the next. Simmons was miscast here, hardly bringing the menacing gravitas that made him a household name over a decade ago.

MGM+’s is the strange case of Titus Welliver, whose stoic magnetism made him a star as Harry Bosch, yet here his character feels like a contrivance, almost a narrative pawn. The show might have been better served if its two stars had switched roles. Simmons brings warmth and humor, but not enough sadness to deepen Eamon or intimidation to make him dangerous. Welliver, meanwhile, has a naturally hard-boiled, street-worn presence that feels lived-in and would have made the role far more interesting.

Is MGM+’s The Westies worth watching?

I am unsure whether these roles were expanded beyond their capacity to bring bigger names into the fold, but the real star of the series is Brittney, who plays an atypical bad guy with as much brains as brawn. The show’s most interesting storyline is the romance between Jimmy and Bridget, played by Sarah Bolger (Mayans M.C.), which explores why the Irish feel so persecuted. However, it lacks the depth or urgency it needs.

That is essentially what makes The Westies such a confounding experience. The show is competent enough, anchored by Brittney’s magnetic turn, to hold your attention. The setting and production design convincingly transport you to another time and place. Yet this is still a watered-down version of a crime genre built on family, violence, loyalty, betrayal, ethnic identity, and antiheroes. It has all the ingredients, along with creatives who know how to use them.

Yet somehow, the final product feels generic and hardly worth a weekly appointment. The Westies has the look of prestige television without the pulse, a saga with blood on its hands but very little under its fingernails. Most frustratingly, it never locates the ferocity needed to make its violence matter.

The Westies premieres with a special two-episode debut at 9:00 p.m. EST on July 12 on MGM+. The rest of the season will drop one episode weekly until August 30. All eight episodes were screened for this review.

The Westies Review: Prestige Crime Genre Missing a Live Wire