Mafiosa (II) (2006–2014) User Reviews

Gets Better Every Season

[SeussMeTub · 7/10 · 12 January 2017]

Mafiosa is a French TV series that ran for five seasons and deals with the Corsican mafia. The story revolves around Sandra Paoli (Hélène Fillières), a lawyer and the daughter of a mob boss who ends up inheriting most of her family's mafia assets after her beloved uncle is gunned down. Sandra is joined by her hot headed brother Jean-Michel (Thierry Neuvic) in an almost dysfunctional drama with your typical mobster subjects like murders, drug deals, extortion, gambling, etc.

Not quite as violent as Italy's Gomorra, nor does it have the complex characters of HBO's The Sopranos or the historicity of Boardwalk Empire, Mafiosa tends to go back and forth between being a soap opera and a mobster show. Sandra tends to fall in love with the hit men she employs and in the ludicrous first season- shuttles back and forth between being a defense lawyer and mafia queen.

The second season gets better as she finally ditches the lawyer subplot and goes full mob boss and the third season is actually quite good as the stakes go higher. But you just can't help but feel it's a little contrived when Sandra does things that no mobster would tolerate: like giving away information to cops, or dating her soldiers and allowing them to abuse her.

There are occasional side plots with goofy gangsters and family angst with her brother's teen daughter (the very hot Phareelle Onoyan), but on the whole it feels a little too tame for the subject matter its supposed to portray. Nevertheless if you're a fan of gangster shows you might want to check it out, just don't expect to be blown away by it.

Not quite serious

[paul2001sw-1 · 6/10 · 6 October 2017]

My favourite mafia drama of recent years was the Italian series 'Gomorrah', which, channelling 'The Wire', wonderfully showed how organised crime was integrated into the everyday lives of a community. With its setting in the complicated society of Corsica, 'Mafiosa' potentially has a rich tale of its own to tell. But with a sexy lawyer who just happens to be head of the syndicate as its leading character, and side-plots involving deep agents and cocky policemen, there's a fundamental silliness here, and the connection to the themes of Corsican nationality and identity feels more bolted on than integral. The female characters of 'Gomorrah' were among that programme's strengths; Sandra Paoli just doesn't have the same depth.

Compelling lead; acceptable but uneven stories.

[jimcheva · 8/10 · 20 November 2022]

This is a Corsican cousin to "Godfather II", only with a woman taking over the family. It begins with her - a lawyer - apparently inclined to live closer to a normal life than that she's been called to, but through the two seasons I've watched shows her embracing the role she's been given all the way. Which soon includes a lot of violence. The real key here is her relationship with her brother, who has been passed over for the top role, but fully supports her for a long time. The anchor of the series is Hélène Fillières, who has a fascinating face with the angry sexuality of a teen, a smoldering way of looking at those she's confronting - for business or otherwise. Many of the scenes come down to her staring intently at someone else - whether with menace, seduction or decison. The big weakness is in the writing, which isn't always consistent, notably in her sexual behavior, which may well spice up the series but seems out of character at times. Also, for those used to this genre of the fundamentally decent person somehow involved in unsavory activity, there are certain rules, which are blithely violated here: the family keeps its word (not always here); the protection of the family is guaranteed (not so much), Sometimes when people are killed the reason is obvious; sometimes it seems very arbitrary. And the show gets increasingly violent as it goes on. It retains a unique quality and a variety of engaging relationships, so I'm sure many will be drawn in to keep watching. But to a large degree, I think it's more for Fillières's compelling presence than well-crafted stories.

great show

[ceco_cenov · 22 April 2014]

The series is great. I totally recommend it. From this type you don't stop until the last episode is done. I am really shocked by the fact that there are no reviews here till now?! You will enjoy a great atmosphere of the authentic presented Corse for the rich mafiosi families, a little bit the modern version of Godfather but really away from it's plot. I've never watched no one from the cast before and I watch a lot of European cinema, that comes to prove you don't always need known actors to make the movie but just to choose the right type and just to let them play, one can feel that those people are really a good representation of the Corse underworld. The last season moreover is the best one. Enjoy this show, I envy you!

Among the best French series ever.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 10/10 · 6 December 2018]

I first tried to watch it several years ago but, I don't know why, I could not make it. After all, I think because of the female leader in a Corsican gang. Corsicans who, as the Sicilians, are machos among machos...I tried again just a couple of weeks ago, four eps per day, and I just finished it. This is a pure jewel, AWESOME piece of work. Of course there are clichés, every movie talking about mafia contains clichés, because that looks like the real underworld...What would you like to see, mobsters taking care of babies or racketting nurseries or pet toiletting shops? That's also a tragedy tale, family tragedy, as SONS OF ANARCHY was, in another register, but also speaking about mobsters, not priests....Every sentence, characters, scene is engraved like a diamond. This is a flood of violence, brutality and emotion. DON'T MISS IT.

A woman finds herself head of a Corsican crime family in this French drama

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 1 March 2018]

This French drama follows Sandra Paoli, a Corsican lawyer who finds herself appointed head of the Paoli crime family following the murder of her uncle. At first is isn't a position she really wants but quickly grows into it as she learns the ropes while the family is split between those who support her and those who believe her brother Jean-Michel should lead the family. It certainly isn't a safe job as she has run-ins with rival families, Corsican Nationalists, the police and even people she considers friends. As her position strengthens the body count rises, both among those close to her and her enemies.

I really enjoyed this crime drama; it had plenty of exciting moments and a real sense of danger in just about every episode. As the final episode approached I was unsure which, if any, of the main characters would survive. While some events were expected there were quite a few surprises and even a couple of tear-jerker moments when certain characters die. The Corsican setting is great; it is somewhere I haven't seen portrayed on TV before and it provided great scenery and a feeling of somewhere rather different to mainland France. The cast does a fine job; most notably Hélène Fillières, who plays Sandra; Thierry Neuvic, who plays Jean-Michel; Eric Fraticelli, who plays Sandra's associate Tony; Phareelle Onoyan, who plays her niece Carmen and Frédéric Graziani and Philippe Corti, who play Tony's friend Manu; the latter taking the role in the final season. Overall I'd certainly recommend this series to fans of the genre.

These comments are based on watching the series in French with English subtitles.

Train wreck in slo-mo

[framersqool · 4/10 · 22 March 2020]

First off, were all these people writing such glowing reviews of this mess watching some other show by the same name, or what? I have watched a lot of crime drama from all around the world, and this calamity has none of the qualities I have ever found enjoyable or compelling in the genre, none at all.

Usually, the mob-side version of the form shows us a group of people bound by loyalty, occasionally interrupted by violence and urgent necessity as they are driven into them by the harsh realities of an underworld life. I would even venture to say that the main element holding most such drama together is how the theme of interpersonal loyalty under continual challenge is used as a kind of symbol for the larger human experience. But here, the question of loyalties, you may as well know, is answered early on and all through the nine-and-a-quarter episodes I managed to endure, is answered simply: there is none, and none to be expected to emerge. And, as shown here, continual betrayal is frankly kind of boring.

All because of "Sandra", who I have to say is the least-convincing mob boss I have ever seen portrayed, not only as a character but by the ashen-faced drabness of the lady playing her. Sandra has a lethal combination of the worst possible traits for someone in her position: she is naive, weak, irresolute, impulsive, uninformed, a victim of her own chronic wishful thinking and worst of all, arrogant. All she brings to this organization she inherits in the first entry is chaos, betrayal and death. Everything she tries, fails. She falls into every trap set for her, as she is so busy setting them for herself and her loved ones that she usually is the last to hear about the other disasters she is directly responsible for.

I stuck with this even as long as I did, just assuming that this impossibly slow and increasingly convoluted story line just had to be headed for some kind of turnaround, that Sandra would at long last pull her head out and rise to the occasion of a position she had never asked for much less ever been prepared to assume. But when, early in S2, she is made to stand on a table and sing to humiliate her in front of her entire organization, and complies meekly, I began to realize that apparently this is about a loser who knows nothing but how to keep on losing. No, thanks.

The ONLY redeeming quality this has is the Corsican locations. Period. And even that is ruined by a pretentious cinematic style which has the camera shaking around all over the place and keeps reverting to these weird badly-framed closeups where half of someone's face is in one corner of the screen while the remainder of the frame is just blurred and meaningless.

I never was much of a fan of French cinema anyway, and its television crime dramas have been consistently the least watchable owing to their being the most self-important and unconvincing of them all.

I don't know what the Frogs' fascination is with female leads who are comically inept at their jobs while their personal lives are nothing but one long juvenile scandal of poor communication and untrustworthiness, but I find it repulsive, as I did this. Only the Swedish make worse crime dramas with more intolerable female lead characters, but add some snow and this would be every bit that bad.

Very Poor Direction, Lousy Story

[leftbanker-1 · 1/10 · 23 March 2020]

The pivotal scene in the very first episode makes no sense. Her bodyguard is beaten and thrown in the trunk while three other attackers enter the caravan. Why would they drive him somewhere else just to shoot him? Then one of her attackers escapes, but this wasn't shown. The bodyguard is thrown in the trunk of his car, for some stupid reason, and shot three time. They his assailant fired three more rounds into the air. Why? This was a miserable bit of direction.

There was absolutely no tension in this scene. They show the bodyguard sitting in his car charging his pistol a couple of times and then is surprised by his attackers making him terrible at his job. The scene in the caravan was completely stupid and hackneyed. She just seems to pull a pistol out of thin air, then hesitates before firing when one of them had a shotgun pointed at her.

This was one of the worst action sequences that I've ever seen in a film.

Great story but...

[bif-21647 · 3/10 · 3 May 2021]

Great story but some episodes gets you boring as it does seem to know to where to go. Isn't there any other actress to portray the lead? This actress acts so boring and isn't convincing at all in portraying a criminal group matriarch. She looks and acts like a transvestite in most scenes. The brother although good looking is the most pathetic and weak criminal I have ever watched.