Guy Ritchie’s MobLand: All Style, No Substance — and Tom Hardy Deserved Better

In the ever-expanding world of streaming content, some shows manage to capture the nostalgia of past decades while making it feel fresh and new. Then there’s MobLand, a new series from Guy Ritchie that is decidedly trapped in a time warp, relentlessly clinging to the excesses and tropes of the 1990s. While it could have been a promising crime drama, MobLand is bogged down by its over-the-top caricatures, cartoonish accents, and anachronistic atmosphere that only seems to highlight the wasted potential of its star, Tom Hardy.

Set in present-day London, MobLand feels like an artifact of a bygone era, desperately clinging to a 90s aesthetic that no one asked for. With a cast led by Pierce Brosnan, a Bond from the same decade, and Hardy himself as a gangland fixer caught in the middle of two warring families, the show feels more like an homage to Ritchie’s past work, such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, than a genuine reinvention of the crime drama genre. The characters’ cartoonish cockney accents and the overblown dialogue (think “Yer a facking numpty”) are straight out of a 90s fever dream, making it hard to take anything seriously, even when the stakes should be high.

The most bewildering aspect of MobLand is its setting. Despite being placed in present-day London, it feels more like a throwback to a London that hasn’t existed for decades. The show’s only redeeming feature might have been its soundtrack, but even that is stuck in a bygone era. The Prodigy’s 1997 album The Fat of the Land plays exclusively in one of the show’s primary locations—a bar—and it’s as if the entire production is playing an elaborate game of 90s nostalgia bingo. It would have been fine if MobLand had been set in the 1990s, but as a contemporary crime series, it’s anachronistic to a fault.

Yet, beneath all of this surface-level nostalgia, MobLand has the seed of something much better. Hardy plays the role of a fixer, charged with keeping the peace between the two criminal families after a young man goes missing. His character’s quiet exhaustion and the never-ending stream of problems he faces are prime material for a compelling performance, but MobLand rarely lets Hardy’s talents shine. The script and direction, bogged down by Ritchie’s love for 90s tropes, prevent Hardy from fully engaging with the role. At times, it seems as if he’s phoning it in, merely walking from one location to another while cleaning up messes left by others.

When Hardy’s character interacts with his wife, played by Joanne Froggatt, there are glimpses of the nuanced, layered performance Hardy is known for. Their scenes—particularly where Hardy’s character uses terminology picked up from couples therapy—are dry, funny, and full of texture, hinting at a version of the show that could have been more emotionally engaging. Unfortunately, these moments are too few and far between, leaving Hardy to mostly slog through an otherwise generic plot.

It’s not just Hardy who is let down by MobLand. The show features an impressive cast, including Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Paddy Considine, but all are relegated to middling roles. The talented Considine, in particular, seems lost in a role that could have been written by a random screenwriting bot—pointless and anonymous. For all their star power, these actors seem to be doing little more than going through the motions, adding to the sense that MobLand is just another paycheck for people who are better than the material they’ve been given.

Ultimately, MobLand feels like a missed opportunity—a show that could have been a gripping, gritty exploration of crime and power but instead falls into the trap of trying too hard to be a throwback to a bygone era. The problem isn’t that Ritchie’s nostalgic influences are unwelcome; it’s that MobLand never transcends its references to become something that feels truly fresh. Instead, it’s a hollow imitation of what could have been, where talented actors are wasted in service of a project that feels more like an indulgent nostalgia trip than a serious crime drama.

Tom Hardy deserves better than this. With his considerable talent, he’s capable of so much more than MobLand allows him to showcase. Let’s hope his next project gives him the material and the direction he needs to truly shine.