HBO's Boardwalk Empire

[JLTucker]

HBO has a new series coming this fall called Boardwalk Empire. Here is the most recent trailer and here is the synopsis:

“Boardwalk Empire” on HBO is from Terence Winter, Emmy Award-winning writer of “The Sopranos,” and Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese. HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” TV series is set in Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition, when the sale of alcohol became illegal throughout the United States.

America in 1920. The Great War is over, Wall Street is about to boom and everything is for sale, even the World Series. It is a time of change when women are getting the vote, broadcast radio is introduced, and young people rule the world.

On the beach in southern New Jersey sits Atlantic City, a spectacular resort known as “The World’s Playground,” a place where rules don’t apply. Massive hotels line its famous Boardwalk, along with nightclubs, amusement piers and entertainment to rival Broadway. For a few dollars, a working man can get away and live like a king-legally or illegally.

In HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” the undisputed ruler of Atlantic City is the town’s Treasurer, Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, (Steve Buscemi) a political fixer and backroom dealer who is equal parts politician and gangster and equally comfortable in either role. Because of its strategic location on the seaboard, the town is a hub of activity for rum-runners, minutes from Philadelphia, hours from New York City and less than a day’s drive from Chicago. And Nucky Thompson takes full advantage in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.”

Along with his brother Elias (Shea Whigham), the town’s Sheriff, and a crew of Ward Bosses and local thugs, Nucky carves out a niche for himself in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” as the man to see for any illegal alcohol. In “Boardwalk Empire,” he is an equal opportunity gangster, doing business with Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg), Big Jim Colosimo (Frank Crudele), Lucky Luciano, (Vincent Piazza) and Al Capone (Stephen Graham).

I will of course tune in to the show since Terence Winter and Martin Scorsese are involved. Winter did a fantastic job with The Sopranos and Scorsese has directed some of the films I hold in high regard. What do you think?