The Penguin Review: A Dark, Gritty Crime Drama in Gotham

When Colin Farrell first portrayed The Penguin in 2022’s DC superhero movie The Batman, Warner Bros. denied his request to have the character smoke his famous cigar. Let’s just say that in The Penguin, smoking his cigar is the least offensive thing he does. This eight-episode miniseries brings us back to Matt Reeves’s take on Gotham. Farrell first appeared as the iconic villain across from Robert Pattinson’s Batman. Now, he’s taking the spotlight as the protagonist of this fantastic crime drama series that provides a mature, hard-R look at the criminal underworld of Gotham City.

This show quickly reimmerses us in that world, picking up right after the end of The Batman. The streets of Gotham remain flooded after The Riddler bombed the seawall. Oswald “Oz” Cobb is trying to seize control of organized crime after the death of crime boss Carmine Falcone. One of The Penguin’s shining elements is how it draws inspiration from the classics. If The Batman was inspired by David Fincher’s work in Se7en and Zodiac, The Penguin feels like a cross between The Godfather, The Sopranos, and Martin Scorsese gangster dramas. While Marvel’s superhero content has become self-deprecatingly formulaic, DC has pushed the envelope by allowing filmmakers to bring something fresh.

Lauren LeFranc does a phenomenal job creating a show that uses its characters well. It was a wise choice to make this show TV-MA, allowing it to breathe. There are F-bombs, blood, and a harder edge that we didn’t fully see in the PG-13 The Batman. From the first dialogue scene, we learn a lot about what kind of person Oz is through his words and actions. We know what he wants to do, and we meet his obstacle: Sofia Falcone, played by Cristin Milioti, Carmine’s daughter who recently got out of Arkham Asylum.

Much like Christopher Nolan, Matt Reeves wanted to bring a dark, gritty, grounded take on these larger-than-life comic book characters. Farrell is splendid in this iteration of The Penguin, but he’s completely unrecognizable. A lot of the credit goes to Farrell’s spectacular performance and the makeup team for giving him a look that’s drastically different from Farrell’s. He’s also tucked away his Irish accent in exchange for a thick New Yawk accent that works as wonderfully here as in The Batman. Throw in the fatsuit and even I completely forgot I was watching Farrell.

The Penguin had a monumental challenge on its hands. Since the show does not focus on a caped vigilante fighting crime, there is no “good guy.” The crime is front and center, and nearly every character in the show is a bad person who has killed people before. The risk with a premise such as this is the possibility that audience members don’t care about them. If everyone in your show is a terrible person, audiences can be left wondering, “Who do I root for?” Fortunately, the writers took a highly nuanced look at each character, allowing each one to have something you can attach to.

One flaw of the show is that the story is not as interesting as everything else around it. The world and production design are spectacular. The character backstories and conflicts are incredible. However, the main storyline surrounds drugs on the streets and the warring crime families. The drug shipment ideas are not bad, but they are the least exciting part of the show. At times, it can feel like the show is aware of this fact, spending little time on the drugs storyline and spending more time delving deep into each character.

As a result, the first two episodes can take a while to get used to. The first episode is solid, but the second episode may have you wondering whether this show will have much value. The third episode is where we begin to learn about Victor Aguilar, played by Rhenzy Feliz. Victor is a young man whom The Penguin meets and employs in the premiere. When we learn about who he was before meeting The Penguin and see a certain choice he makes, it’s heartbreaking but perfect. The fourth episode barely has Oz at all, but it’s one of the show’s best episodes as it explores Sofia and the lies she tells herself to make herself feel better about everything around her.

While the show has phenomenal casting choices across the board, like Clancy Brown as the menacing Salvatore Maroni or Deirdre O’Connell as Oz’s mentally disturbed mother (she is incredible, by the way), the real stand-out is Milioti. Milioti has taken on a fair share of comedic roles in How I Met Your Mother and a personal favorite, Palm Springs. She taps into something so threatening and yet, so tragic with this role. The more we learn about what made her into who she is, the more humanity she has. Despite consistently being the antagonist to Farrell’s protagonist, I found her to be an easier character to root for than Oz.

There’s a solid emotional center with Oz and his relationship with his mother, where we glimpse into Oz’s haunting past and how he always looks to her for validation. The Penguin does a beautiful job of giving each character enough screen time so that when certain events happen, you feel their impact. Even though Oz is the protagonist, I found myself not wanting him to win. That is a fascinating relationship to have with a show’s main character, and the last two episodes drive this point home. This HBO show is a fantastic addition to a DC franchise that benefits from this. The rich, textured characters push the show forward, and every time we have more character-centric episodes, The Penguin is at its best.

SCORE: 8/10

As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 8 equates to “Great.” While there are a few minor issues, this score means that the art succeeds at its goal and leaves a memorable impact.

Disclosure: ComingSoon received screeners for our The Penguin review.

Jonathan Sim

Jonathan Sim is a film critic and filmmaker born and raised in New York City. He has met/interviewed some of the leading figures in Hollywood, including Christopher Nolan, Zendaya, Liam Neeson, and Denis Villeneueve. He also works as a screenwriter, director, and producer on independent short films.