I would be happy to cast a man with Colin Farrell’s good looks and good body to play Pinguim, a venal creature of Gotham City’s underworld. Not that Pinguim is truly subhuman, but because of his real-life stature and his many appearances in the quadrinhos, the cartoon and film designs—short, stubby, lacking, and pointed—offer a series of physical traits that Farrell lacks. (And he was present in many of the actors; Danny DeVito still needed a lot of makeup to transform into a version of the character in “Batman Returns,” but he certainly wasn’t in a lower-class role.)
Now it's confirmed that Farrell's version of the character will make his debut in 2022's “The Batman” full-length film and be revived for a sequel series of other HBO episodes. “Oh Benjoy” It looks like a make-up façanha, turning the protagonist into a contributing gangster.
The real magic of “O Pinguim,” however, is how he transforms Oswald Cobb (just “Cobblepot,” presumably to give a quasi-realistic emphasis to the humble roots of this version) back into the protagonist, the antihero he writes. Despite all the trappings that accompany the role of Oswald—the scarred face, the eyes of a man who’s disfigured, the bald head, the jacket of a stereotypical gangster somewhere on the New York-New Jersey border—it’s Farrell himself who truly inhabits the character in all its facets. Gloria’s anti-heroism is lucrative, comfortable, and at times surprisingly surprising. As impressive as his transformation is, it’s all the more enjoyable when the slightest touch of Farrell’s natural mannerisms—his pauses, his hunched shoulders, the natural lightness of his Irish voice—escape the heavy effects. It’s a perfect blend of how Oswald often oscillates between bravado and panic, between cruelty and surprising charm.
Isso is the motto present in the series' first dinner, launched in Gotham at the end of “The Batman,” where Farrell executes a miniature symphony of criminal maneuvers: he invades the boat he ran; searches for important documents; confronts a rival gangster who demolishes him; tries to leave the situation by befriending his friends; ages impulsively, and finally curses himself about the bajunka he just saved lives, as the program cuts to the opening title.
The ongoing differences continue throughout the series, considering the power vacuum created by the death of Carmine Falcone (John Turturro’s character in the film). Oswald works under Falcone and sees an opportunity to rise further up the mafia hierarchy. But to do so, we must navigate the return of Carmine’s family, Sofia (Cristin Milioti), who has recently been released from a stint in Arkham State Hospital, and consider the waning of the rival family led by Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown), who Oswald was hoping to manipulate to his advantage. Oswald also assumes a sort of accidental apprentice, in the form of the honest Victor (Renzi Velez), a young man who has become desperate after losing his future family.
Some of the characters and elements in the many Quadrinhos Batman novels published in the last quarter century, include a series that is not interested in slavishly re-creating historical events. Like “O Batman,” “O Pinguim” is more loyal to the general tone of sinister detective fiction, while at the same time affecting a more grounded approach to the material that often ignores the admirable sensibilities that Quadrinhos’s great Batman portrayals. This is another way of saying that this series is not exactly on the level of “The Sopranos,” the TV-level comparison for a series like “O Batman” was not exactly “O Poderoso Chivao” or “Zodiacos” or any number of films that have a third. I expected to imitate.
In that sense, the show seems like an odd choice for HBO, which typically produces genuinely prestige television that other channels try to imitate with such high-end productions.
So, as a Quadrinhos adaptation, “O Pinguim” is a mix of diversity that has been produced, edited, and developed with vigor. It’s not one of the cop shows as superficially described, and it easily outperforms most of its true peers, show or spinoff from the Marvel Universe, in its understanding of how to break up a fourth season of television into serialized episodes. In a satisfying way. (Be grateful for the small favors.) The story of Oswald’s tragic vulnerability involving his mother (Deirdre O’Connell) may be a bit canned (Empora, again, sounds a lot like the story told in the valiant Quadrinhos ), but the constant “Breaking Bad”-style distortions of seemingly unprepared situations are not handled with the show’s sly elegance.
Nor is it just a window dressing for Farrell. The show’s creator, Lauren LeFranc, has a clear connection to Sofia—and what does it mean to allow a glamorous woman like Cristin Milioti to become the Italian-American princess of Venganka? His painful story of the Quadrinhos is so ridiculous, Milioti interprets it as hell. While Farrell lets his charm shine through his rustic exterior, Milioti uses it to mask his cruelty.
Along with several confrontations in the horde war, it testifies to the plausibility of the show’s insistence on not mentioning Batman’s name; the show’s final mention seems very minor, given his public appearances in the events leading up to the series. It may also be a misguided attempt at accountability, one that LeFranc and his team need not pursue. “O Pinguim” is a fun, snake-like piece that accompanies an otherwise fun and entertaining event. There’s nothing wrong with that, and there’s no reason to cover the production with prestige machinery.
The Penguin premieres on September 19 on HBO and Max.
