There’s a very witty performance at the center of “Power Book IV: Force,” the fourth and latest incarnation of the “Power” franchise on Starz starring Joseph Sikora as Tommy Egan, a bad boy extraordinaire pushing his way into Chicago’s illegal drug trade. Here’s a guy with attitude and swagger and a working-class suspicion of anything (or anyone) too slick. He’s rough around the edges, and proudly so. And he’s funny.
Tommy is forever in search of mess. Oh, does Tommy like mess! If there’s drama, he’ll find it. Or cause it: “I gotta short fuse and a long memory.” He has zero chill, but like every gangster from Scarface on down, he can size up a situation and is loyal in his own way, but at the end of the day he wants all the smoke. This controlled recklessness has served him well. Is he superhuman? No. He’s smart. And lucky.
Ghost, the main character in the original “Power,” was the closest thing he had to a brother, and now that’s gone, for good or for ill. Tommy is the kind of guy you want to follow into battle, except he’s choosing all the wrong battles. Unlike so many white people, he is at ease in Black spaces, among Black people. He’s blazingly confident, but to mangle an idiom: Confident’s just another word for nothing left to lose. In the real world, this kind of thing would have put someone like Tommy in the ground years ago. But here he is, living and breathing and driving that gorgeous deep blue Mustang around the city like he owns the place.
And in a way, he does. Tommy may be a recent transplant to Chicago from New York, but Sikora is a Chicago native through-and-through, raised on the Northwest Side. You can hear it in the way he talks. It doesn’t hurt that show creator Robert Munic is from Chicago, as well. I love the way the city is shot, awash in chilly blues and grays. It’s moody but recognizable, as opposed to the flat, visual blandness that pervades a certain trio of Chicago shows on NBC. Tommy is constantly finding vantage points to stare at the skyline, deep in thought, and if that’s a bit cliche, it’s also gorgeous imagery. The city has him in its thrall, but it goes both ways; Tommy has the city in his clutches as well.
Since his arrival in town — Ghost-less for the first time — he has cagily aligned himself with a South Side operation known as the Chicago Brothers Incorporated, or the CBI, led by Diamond Sampson. A coolheaded tall drink of water fresh out of prison, Diamond is played with understated charisma by Isaac Keys and the two men have more in common than first meets the eye. In an early episode, they team up and race against the clock to unload some drugs before Diamond’s younger brother gets got — their adrenaline pumping the entire time.
Tommy: “Maybe we the junkies, huh?”
Diamond: “Not me, I never touch it.”
Tommy: “No, I mean, ya know, chasing that high of when we first got away with it.”
Oh, that. Yes, they are addicted in that sense.
“Power Book IV: Force” had the biggest series premiere for any show on Starz, and, midway through its 10-episode season, it has proven to be one of the more entertaining shows to film in Chicago. The title is clunky and I trip over it every time (I feel like I’m talking about a souped-up iPad) but the show is high-octane entertainment and it gets a lot right — about how segregated the city is, and also how insular. Chicago can be a place of cold streets, both literal and metaphorical, and I appreciate that there’s snow on the ground and a dibs joke in the first episode (though I’ve never heard it referred to, as it is here, as “private parking”).
Theatergoers will recognize longtime Chicago stage actors such as Guy Van Swearingen (as a besuited crime boss consigliere) and Anthony Fleming III (as Tommy’s long-lost Black half brother). It’s bittersweet to note that Larry Neumann Jr., another veteran local theater actor who died last month, turns up briefly as a guy squatting in an abandoned firehouse who quickly scrams when Tommy hands over some cash and moves in. A number of scenes take place at a fictitious haunt called Dr. Parker’s Office, with its low-lit, red-hued interior, and that’s not a set built on a soundstage but a real bar, the California Clipper in Humboldt Park, which recently reopened under new ownership.
There’s also plenty here that feels like creative license. The big dogs in the drug game are an Irish family on the North Side called the Flynns. Their lakefront mansion suggests they live in one of the north suburbs rather than Chicago proper, and the fact that no one gives them grief about calling Chicago “my city” from one of the wealthier ‘burbs is such a missed opportunity! Of course, Tommy needs a nemesis, otherwise, there’d be no show, but all the Flynn stuff is hammy and lands awkwardly, like it wandered in from another show entirely.
No, it’s Tommy — and by extension, Sikora — who is shouldering everything that’s interesting about “Force.” Considering he’s in most of the scenes, that works out just fine. Sikora is having the time of his life as a man who likes to mix it up and dive headlong into danger. Tommy has such an instinct for underhanded dealings (and violence, so much violence) and he has yet to make a fatal mistake, which is why this is such a fantasy — and why it’s so much fun to watch. It’s not particularly deep. Doesn’t need to be. But it’s such a thrillingly grounded but out-there performance and Sikora deserves heaps of attention for it. Because really, this is the Tommy Egan show.
He’s the one you want to spend time with. If only to see what he’ll do next.
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'POWER BOOK IV: FORCE'
3 stars (out of 4)
Rating: TV-MA
Where to watch: New episodes air Sundays on Starz
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