McMafia

That a miniseries can create characters and environments that seem so tangibly real is an exceptional feat. Unfortunately, in its back half, McMafia seems to forget about the worlds it’s inhabited in order to focus on the rather frustrating characters at its core. It’s still a compelling journey, and many ways the narrative arc is an inevitable one.

Alex, who has tried to live a by-the-book life as a businessman, gets pulled into a family crisis in a believable way that doesn’t feel like a ridiculous TV plot twist.

Norton's stony glare, and a supporting cast rarely rising above one-line descriptions don't sink proceedings. Even if this is just The Night Manager cross-pollinated with The Godfather, it produces a decent hybrid.

It's durably made, thoughtfully written and well-acted. It’s also ... methodical, to put it nicely. Others might call it plodding.

It’s not terrible, not great, just OK: better acted than directed, better directed than written, and generally a bit cooler and more generic than it needed to be in order to stand out in a medium that already has more violent antiheroes than it can handle.

"Where is all this going and should I really care?" is the question that plagues the series, despite some compelling elements and a gifted international cast. In McMafia, the ambition is there but the interest to see it play out may not be.

If it were a McDonalds product, it would be an Egg McMuffin. Bland but filling, it’s a breakfast sandwich sans any discernible flavor.

While there are strong moments in this globetrotting international series, it plays like a retread of earlier mob tales -- albeit with a timely tie-in to the Russians and money laundering -- in a way that represents an offer you can safely refuse.

Norton plays Alex with such committed blankness that his rare outbursts of emotion are almost humorous. He’s best during the action set pieces, which create the propulsive tension the series sorely lacks. But he can’t convey the motivations of a character who doesn’t have any.

The larger set pieces feel reasonably well populated and a computer-assisted heist (those shipping containers, mentioned above), accomplished by minor but vividly portrayed characters, is more convincing than such sequences usually are. What's difficult is caring what happens to most of these characters for any amount of time

McMafia gets off to a painstakingly slow start. For the first half hour of the premiere, I was lulled to sleep by talk of banking and finance. Even after the pace finally starts picking up, things slow down again.