I am – Hercules!! I remember when the big stack of NBC drama pilots turned up last summer. I watched “Studio 60,” then “Heroes,” then “Kidnapped,” and thought to myself, “NBC comes roaring back!” Then I got to the “The Black Donnellys” pilot, which is awful, and chalked it up to the law of averages. It’s a mob drama from Paul Haggis, who created “Walker: Texas Ranger” before he started winning Oscars for writing “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash.” If “Crash” was Haggis and Bobby Morasco maybe trying to do “Magnolia” (or maybe “Pulp Fiction”?), this may be their stab at an Irish “GoodFellas.” Trouble is, the writers incessantly mistake “boorish” for “colorful,” and their plotting is predictable and too derivative of other, much better mob sagas. The show’s non-saving grace is the presence of fabulous Olivia Wilde, who was much more fun as Mischa Barton’s smoking-hot lesbian love interest on “The O.C.” But what matters Herc’s opinion? USA Today gives it one star (out of four) and says:

… a failed, frustrating attempt to build a weekly hour around four young thugs staking out their criminal ground between New York's Irish and Italian Mobs. … It won't be long before you're asking yourself two main questions: Is the plot ever going to sort itself out? And is Joey ever going to shut up? The answers are "in time" and, sadly, "no." You'll eventually be able to tell one gun-toting, ax-wielding character from another. You're just not likely to develop a desire to spend time with them. …

Entertainment Weekly gives it a “C-plus” and says:

… a thinking viewer's head-scratcher … Haggis equates the slow revealing of character and plot with classy writing; you'll probably experience it as stuff you can see coming a mile away. …

The New York Times says:

… Paul Haggis’s much-celebrated 2004 film, “Crash,” used shortcuts — clichés in the score, camerawork and color mix — to induce emotional responses. The same methods inform his latest television series, “The Black Donnellys.” Actually the show lays bare his form of aesthetic condescension so baldly that it may cause viewers to rethink his earlier achievement. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… "The Black Donnellys" is tripe. Not tripe as in, "I'd recommend a medium-bodied Cab with that," but tripe as in rubbish. NBC sent out five episodes; I sat through three before throwing the DVD on the Donate to Public Library pile. I would like to apologize in advance to the library. …

The Chicago Tribune says:

… This pretentious mishmash is a paint-by-numbers Irish-American “Sopranos” ripoff … most of the details on “The Black Donnellys” feel too retro and ring false. This show is more artificial than a bowl of Lucky Charms. ... Though the plots are complicated, they’re not involving. Very little happens in this show that isn’t easy to predict, and the occasional energetic sequences are offset by ponderously long scenes that go nowhere. ...

The Chicago Sun-Times gives it three stars and says:

… These tall tales flow into a stream of consciousness. That's good. The acting is convincing. That's good. The Irish stuff is heavy-handed. That's bad. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… First, it's a mob story. And all mob stories get compared to "The Sopranos." This is no "Sopranos." Secondly, there's a kind of "Irish Sopranos" wannabe feel to "The Black Donnellys," and if any show is going to wear that hat, it's "Brotherhood" on Showtime. This is no "Brotherhood." … has a few neat tricks up its sleeve but ultimately succumbs to being an inferior story on a broadcast network that can't even remotely match two far better cable series. And it's not just a matter of looser standards on HBO and Showtime. "The Black Donnellys" wants us to root for what has to be the dumbest -- and youngest -- crime family on television. …

The Houston Chronicle says:

… Those expecting Godfather-style violence and Sopranos-style archetypes and language will be disappointed; broadcasters are in no mood (at least not until 2008) to test FCC boundaries. Even if they were, The Black Donnellys wouldn't be in the league of those great shows. It more closely resembles Showtime's Brotherhood, but neither the writing nor the acting — with the exceptions of Tucker and Wilde's — is up to that series' standards. …

The Boston Herald says:

What if Archie Comics and the folks behind Lucky Charms cereal decided to make a mob drama? It would look a lot like “The Black Donnellys,” a violent, unintentionally funny series about Irish himbo hoods in New York. These lads are full of it, all right.

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco (creators, writers and exec producers) ask us to invest time and emotion in characters that often are so obnoxious and self-centered that we can only wish, at times, that they get their comeuppance, either from the law or neighborhood rivals. Maybe this show would be more compelling if the Donnellys were a little less black and a little more gray. The saving grace is that Haggis and Moresco are nothing if not superior storytellers. Watching the first five episodes sent for review, you have to marvel at how seeds planted in an early episode blossom into complicated and absorbing tales in a later show. It is well-cast, too. If only those characters weren't so off-putting. …

Variety says:

… An old adage cautions that every successful filmmaker has a highly personal dud in them, just yearning for the industry clout to set it free. Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco enjoyed precisely such leverage after their Oscar-winning "Crash," and the result is this grim, brooding, utterly muddled crime series, which travels the same littered, dangerous roads -- with considerably less panache -- as an earlier Haggis offering that squandered CBS' time and resources, "EZ Streets." NBC might fare better with "Heroes" as a lead-in, but it will take true heroics to win "The Black Donnellys" an extended reprieve from an Irish wake. …

10 p.m. Monday. NBC.

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