Underrated Action Thriller Proves Tony Soprano Wasn’t James Gandolfini’s Most Villainous Role
But he managed to mix the two characters, and that helped a lot.
There’s hardly a person who hasn't heard of one of the most iconic TV series ever created – The Sopranos. The show follows all the daily dangerous shenanigans of a powerful mobster clan with its boss Tony Soprano being ultimately the reason why you fall in love with it.
Tony Soprano is a character with a rather complex personality, and late James Gandolfini was a perfect casting choice for it. You can’t say Tony was your classic protagonist, but you also can’t call him the villain of the story as well, despite there being times you even wondered whether he actually has some sort of a soul.
But even the role of a mob boss wasn’t the most brutal and villainous in Gandolfini’s career. In 2001, two years after The Sopranos premiered, he played the part of Colonel Winter, a rather corrupt and dark-hearted commandant in the movie called The Last Castle.
Winter is the warden of one of the most inescapable military prisons in the country, known as The Castle, and his methods of dealing with problems are rather questionable. He thinks he is the only one who needs to be in power, and when a problem gets in his way, he solves it in the most outrageous way.
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The movie didn’t get much acclaim and only received a 52% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the viewers still mentioned that Gandolfini, Robert Redford and Mark Ruffalo did an amazing job together.
“James Gandolfini was great with Robert Redford. It was nice to see Tony Soprano style moments. The heavy nose breathing. I always wondered if that was a Tony thing. Making Mark Ruffalo stand as he eats and ignores him. Like Tony did with Ralph in Vesuvio. Smiling while saying very threatening things.Hating anyone else being in charge,” Redditor KingOfQueens1977 said.
The movie is available to stream on Paramount+.