Fourteen years after The Sopranos finished its groundbreaking run comes this rankling prequel. Aficionados of HBO’s New Jersey mobster adventure can rejoice; The Many Saints of Newark is all that you’d need it to be.

The story covers the mid-’60s to mid ’70s, when Tony Soprano is still at school (indeed, when he’s not grifting), however clearly absorbing all that his more seasoned family members do. Tony’s played by William Ludwig and, later, Michael Gandolfini – child of the late James Gandolfini, who so memorably began the job. Both are extraordinary, with Gandolfini getting a portion of his dad’s characteristics; however with Tony’s dad (Jon Bernthal) in prison and his mom (Vera Farmiga) confounded, the spotlight falls on Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), the man youthful Tony gazes upward to.

As fans know, Dickie is the dad to Christopher, whom Tony similarly encouraged in the show. The plot kicks in with Dickie’s fierce dad Aldo ‘Hollywood Dick’ Moltisanti (Ray Liotta) getting back from Italy with another lady of the hour (Gabriella Piazza), however a marriage will not endure. In a grip for power, the unpredictable Dickie is frightening in his activities.

The story dovetails with real-life as the 1967 Newark Race Riots emit in the city. Racial pressures between the Italian-American and African-American people group bubble over, represented by Dickie’s contention with Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), a recruited firearm who turns out to be perilously laced in Dickie’s own life.

Co-scripted by Sopranos maker David Chase and Lawrence Konner (who wrote various scenes), it’s a profoundly convincing history. Nivola and Liotta are champions in a top notch cast, while more youthful variants of natural characters – Uncle Junior (Corey Stoll), Silvio Dante (John Magaro) and Big Pussy (Samson Moeakiola) – zigzag all around a story that stews for the principal hour, prior to raising, thrillingly, in the last stages.

A somewhat unusual thought sees the film narrated from the grave by Christopher (Michael Imperoli). It doesn’t totally work, however at that point The actual Sopranos was never reluctant to evaluate weirdo dream-like minutes. Generally chief Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World), another Sopranos veteran, doesn’t put a foot wrong, recovering the show’s soul.

With Tony an insubordinate schoolkid who fantasies about playing in the NFL, he’s a spectator to this horde life; yet key to the film’s prosperity is the way deftly it sets up the universe of unstable brutality and income sans work to which he will eventually be influenced.