Thursday, September 19, 2024

American Godfathers: Five Families (2024)


The History Channel series The Five Families is excellent. Running a breezy six hours the series covers the  history of a the mafia in America in an informative and entertaining way.

Odds are you’ve seen this story any number of times and told in all sorts of ways so its hard to make one that doesn’t seem old hat. Five Families manages to not be old hat.

I think the reason the series works is that it does what most recent tellings haven’t done, and that is tell the whole thing in one go and give an overview  of the important points. No, it isn’t really detailed, and yes it leaves a lot out, but it gives us a wonderful sense of the whole story from founding to the recent collapse in the days after John Gotti. Personally after seeing so many docs and series on the various aspects it was nice to have it all knitted together.

To be honest I wasn’t planning on watching the series but channel surfing between innings during the Met game on the first night hooked me and I ended up watching the series on the next two nights. I even rewatched the parts I had seen before.

The true crime comfort food and is recommended

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