Taylor Sheridan
Tulsa King

"As long as I'm having fun, I don't feel the need to retire."

Created by Taylor Sheridan, "Tulsa King", a flagship of Paramount Plus, is a TV series featuring the workaholic Sylvester Stallone in the role of Dwight "The General" Manfredi, a New York mafia boss who has just finished serving a 25-year prison sentence. After his release, he is sent to Tulsa to establish criminal operations there. Not knowing anyone in the area, the General will seek a new crew to help him establish his empire.

An unusual gangster epic that rejects any form of documentary ambition to devote itself to a morbid and unhealthy irony, finding its support in the uninhibited machismo of its protagonist. Or at least it tries, failing.

Dealing with the inexorable passage of time had already been addressed by Scorsese with the troubled "The Irishman", a potential spiritual testament of his layered cinematic mythology: the product, despite a pervasive mannerism, screamed its own immortality from every pore, while managing to maintain a certain degree of credibility at the same time.

Stallone, on the other hand, in the desperate need to impose his elephantine masculinity, falls victim to it: the rich parade of action scenes with relative tough-guy poses are a clumsy and awkward imitation of an old man who has not yet accepted the weight of his years and who is in no way able to decode the rhythms and languages of today's pop culture. The narrative itself, which, as mentioned, embraces the absurd at the expense of any form of realism, is a slave to the ego of its lead actor.

Even the comedic element, initially appealing and tasty, ends up succumbing to the nonsense of some improbable sequences and questionable choices, among phone-in love stories, weak psychological insights, and irritating diatribes against Gen Z.

In short, a swaggering representation of the basest onanism, which does not allow any truly noteworthy creative spark to emerge.

An unpardonable, obsolete trash incapable of engaging with the new generations. To be discarded.