The construction of the glass box where Hillary Clinton would eventually concede the 2016 election may not sound like the stuff of riveting television. And sure enough, it isn’t — at least in “The Westies,” the MGM+ drama about how the titular Irish gang worked to profit off the building of the Javits Center on the far edge of Manhattan. Despite the presence of veteran actors like J.K. Simmons and Titus Welliver as a local crime boss and the crooked cop he keeps on the payroll, “The Westies” is unable to deliver a distinctive take on a well-worn genre.
Oscar winner Simmons stars as Eamon Sweeney, a Hell’s Kitchen kingpin looking to leverage the Javits project into a gravy train for his associates, an interchangeable mob of young toughs with names like Sean and Connor. Sweeney’s vision requires making nice with the Italian Mafia that far outnumbers his dwindling crew — chief among them a skeptical and ascendant John Gotti (Hamish Allan-Headley), the most famous reminder that “The Westies” is (loosely) based on a real-life organization. (Would that “The Westies” were as transcendently awful as the 2018 biopic starring John Travolta as Gotti; instead, it’s merely dull.) But that plan relies on an impulsive group of violent thugs staying in line, and on junior deputies like Sweeney’s protegé Jimmy Roarke (Tom Brittney, saddled with distracting sideburns) trusting his judgment.
