The Bronx is smoldering

Around hour two of the four hour mini-series that was last night's Yankees Royals pitching duel, we turned our attention to "The Bronx is Burning" for the first time. I have to agree with a number of critics...Turturro is mesmerizing as Billy Martin (the prosthetic ears are a bit much, though), Oliver Platt has Steinbrenner's mannerisms down cold -- his football pep talk ("C'mon over and take a knee") was hilarious, and I thought a real standout was Erik Jensen who played Thurmon Munson. He hasn't been mentioned much, but he makes the Munson character totally believable. The weakest character, unfortunately, is Daniel Sunjata as Reggie. He just doesn't seem to have the physical stature to pull it off. Maybe it was just the episode I saw last night, but he didn't strike me as having the sharp wit to come up with "I'm the straw that stirs the drink." He mainly just whined.

Another thing on which I agree with the critics -- the side story of Son of Sam feels tacked on. The Breslin character is good, and it's fun to hear Breslin's words again (they don't make newspaper columnists like that anymore), but the story sheds no light on what's going on in the Bronx, and the Yankees club house that year offers more than enough content. Recently, Ron Guidry was asked if it was tough playing on a club with so many sideshows, the taciturn Cajun just laughed and said, no, it was fun.

One thing that struck me as strange, though: did Berkeley, CA-raised Billy Martin really have such a thick Southern accent, as protrayed by Turturro? Was it the year and a half he spent in Texas auditioning for the Yankees job?

UPDATE: No, my memory didn't fail me.



Does Turturro play up the accent to create even greater tension with sensitive, educated, and articulate Jackson? Like I said, strange.