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The Sopranos : Complete HBO Season 2 [1999]
by James Gandolfini
from Warner Home Video

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

The second series of The Sopranos, David Chase's ultra-cool and ultra-modern take on New Jersey gangster life, matches the brilliance of the first, although it's marginally less violent, with more emphasis given to the stories and obsessions of supporting characters. Sadly, the programme-makers were forced to throttle back on the appalling struggle between gang boss Tony Soprano and his Gorgon-like Mother Livia, the very stuff of Greek theatre, following actress Nancy Marchand's unsuccessful battle against cancer. Taking up her slack, however, is Tony's big sister Janice, a New Age victim and arrant schemer and sponger, who takes up with the twitchy, Scarface-wannabe Richie Aprile, brother of former boss Jackie, out of prison and a minor pain in Tony's ass.

Other running sub-plots include the hapless efforts by Chris (Michael Imperioli) to sell his real-life Mafia story to Hollywood, the return and treachery of Big Pussy and Tony's wife Carmela's ruthlessness in placing daughter Meadow in the right college. Even with the action so dispersed, however, James Gandofini is still toweringly dominant as Tony. The genius of his performance, and of the programme-makers, is that, despite Tony being a whoring, unscrupulous, sexist boor, a crime boss and a murderer, we somehow end up feeling and rooting for him, because he's also a family man with a bratty brood to feed, who's getting his balls busted on all sides, to say nothing of keeping the government off his back. He's the kind of crime boss we'd like to feel we would be. Tony's decent Italian-American therapist Dr Melfi's (Loraine Bracco) perverse attraction with her gangster-patient reflects our own and, in her case, causes her to lose her first series cool and turn to drink this time around.

Effortlessly multi-dimensional, funny and frightening, and devoid of the sentimentality that afflicts even great American TV like The West Wing, The Sopranos is boss of bosses in its televisual era. --David Stubbs

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

• What's all the fuss about?
  My wife and I are half way through the second series of 'The Sopranos'. We both really enjoyed series one, but have already become a bit bored with series two, since it doesn't seem to take things a great deal further than series one did, and we both agree that we probably will not bother getting further series, even if someone lends them to us - luckily we borrowed series two. I have given this DVD three stars since the acting is good and the stories are okay. I've watched series one of 'The Wire' and 'Oz'... more info

• as good as it gets...
  The Sopranos is the best TV show I've ever seen. Reviewing this particular series should substitute for sending a full review--pending the complete box set.
  The 2nd series of The Sopranos is perhaps the best. It's a close run thing between this and series 5. The horror and attraction runs full tilt through each episode as T tries to hold his genetic and extended families together. The dénouement is written from a level that causes altitude sickness compared to the nonsense passing for good TV... more info

• BEYOND WORDS
  Season two of the award winning HBO produced series lifts off from where series one landed and brings new meaning to the word stunning,this is the most vital of dramatic tv,laughs come and go in the show but the tension remains throughout and thats a credit to a team of writers who Shakespear would certainly approve off.
  Where series one started off a tad slowly,series two races along in full pelt as the 13 episodes unravel and unfold with an addictive quality.For those in the dark the show centres... more info

• "IF ONE FAMILY DOESN'T KILL HIM, THE OTHER FAMILY WILL"
  After watching the whole 13 hours of the first series in 2 days, i purchased this series. I was thrilled at how brilliant it was, and subsequently, watched the whole 12 hours....in one day! Call me sad but buy this and i'll bet you you'll do the same!

  It's alot darker then the first series, there's more violence too, but that just adds to the excitment! We say good bye to one of the gang (I won't tell you who), after Tony finds a wire in his bedroom. We also see the arrival, and 'bloody' exciting... more info

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