First Impression: HBO's Boardwalk Empire

Boardwalk Empire is HBO's newest period biographical series, from executive producers Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter, who also writes the show.

Steve Buscemi is Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson, Treasurer of Atlantic City in 1920 on the eve of prohibition. In addition to presenting himself as a stalwart member of society he's positioning himself, with the help of politically strategically placed family and friends, as the provider of alcohol for the whole of the city.

Promising to the mayor to keep Atlantic City as "wet as a mermaid's twat" Nucky assures his fellow businessmen that people will indeed pay for the privilege of drinking the illegal alcohol, even at inflated prices.

Juggling his own ventures is hard enough but Nucky also has to grapple with up and comer Jimmy Darmondy, a flawless Michael Pitt, who gave up a Princeton education to serve his country.  Despite a wife who would rather he stay on the straight and narrow, he can't resist the lure of the lifestyle.

After taking the initiative on a job without the consent of Nucky, Darmondy take his lumps like a champ but not without a dose of hard reality.

"I could have you killed" states Nucky.


"Yeah but you won't. Look, you can't be half a gangster Nuck, not anymore, let me help you" retorts Jimmy.

And that is precisely Nucky's problem. He wants to be the sinner and the saviour, to morph between gangster and good Samaritan. I suspect this conundrum will be the impetus for much of Boardwalk Empire's interpersonal dramas.

Steve Buscemi is positively ace as Nucky, but he's joined by a capital assortment of co-stars including; Kelly Macdonald as Margaret, a pregnant mother whose husband doesn't appreciate Nucky's charity, Vincent Piazza  as Lucky Luciano, Stephen Graham as Al Capone and the vocally unrecognizable Dabney Coleman as Commodore Kaestner.

The indoor sets and scenes are stunning with no detail left out, from the taffy pulling machine on the boardwalk to the phonograph player to the dapper window pane striped suits and slinky slip dresses. It's a dream to look at with exception of the outdoor ocean and sky scenes which suffer from the heavy hand of CGI.

I think Boardwalk Empire will be filled with everything that fascinates us about the 1920s; sex, danger, gangsters, vaudeville, enterprise, gambling, crooks vs. g-men and of course, the almighty alcohol, the catalyst of Nucky's fame and fortune.

For a more in depth look at Nucky Thompson and his kingdom of debauchery, please seek out Nelson Johnson's Boardwalk Empire:The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City which provided much of the source material for the show.