The swagger (and the mess) of Egan on ‘Power Book IV: Force’
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. If there’s drama, he’ll find it. Or cause it: “I got a 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, a recent transplant to Chicago from New York, 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.
Since his arrival in town — Ghost-less for the first time — Tommy 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.
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.
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. 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), 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. Where to watch: Starz