Showtime's Blood "Brotherhood"
The common ground between gangsters and government gets a brooding, bloody exploration in Showtime's highly praised new series BROTHERHOOD, which debuts Sunday July 9 at 10pm.
A tale of two Irish-American brothers--one a mysterious criminal (Jason Isaacs), one a rising Rhode Island state lawmaker (Jason Clarke)--has an obvious real-life parallel in the Bulger brothers, Whitey and Billy, of Massachusetts. And the gangland milieu has drawn obvious comparisons to HBO's THE SOPRANOS. But a better comparison may be to HBO's late, lamented law-and-order series THE WIRE, which made the city of Baltimore as much a character as its narcotics cops and drug dealers.
Several superb film directors, including Philip Noyce, Nick Gomez, have done BROTHERHOOD episodes, and the cast is first rate. Check out my review in the Boston Phoenix and Alessandra Stanley's writeup in the New York Times.
As Showtime proved with SLEEPER CELL and WEEDS, there's more than one premium cable making the best drama in or out of movie theatres.
Showtime's site is http://www.showtime.net