{alltv} HBO builds a mighty, brutal 'Boardwalk Empire'

Miss America, move over: Atlantic City has a new cultural standard-bearer.

Extravagantly produced, shockingly violent and as cold and hard as ice, Boardwalk Empire brings us back to the world's former playground at the start of Prohibition — and brings HBO back to the forefront of the TV-series race. There's a growing host of homes for great series, but it's hard to imagine anyone but HBO lavishing so much money and attention on a potentially tough-sell period piece, or filling it with such an inspired array of top-level talent.

Start with director Martin Scorsese, coming to TV on a show created by another acclaimed chronicler of America's gangland history, Sopranos' alumnus Terence Winter. They've richly re-created a Roaring '20s world on the edge of an ocean and a precipice, and populated it with a riveting rogues gallery.

Holding center stage as Nucky Thompson, the emperor of the city's legal and illegal operations, is Steve Buscemi, a well-regarded talent but not someone you think of as a "star." Think again: The squirrelly normality he brings to his performance as a witty, greedy, immoral man surrounded by nincompoops and psychopaths will change that perception.

Nucky has grown rich on graft and gambling, but that's small change compared with the fortunes to be made from booze, and with tense precision, Boardwalk chronicles what happens when that much illegally gained money goes up for grabs.

One by one, characters are pulled into its vortex: Nucky's young protégé Jimmy (Michael Pitt); a budding African-American crime boss (Michael Kenneth Williams); an obsessed fed (Michael Shannon). Circling the outside are a seen-it-all showgirl (Gretchen Mol) and an innocent widow (Kelly Macdonald) who may be Nucky's destruction or salvation. There's not a dull character or bad performance among them.

They help make Boardwalk a show to be admired and honored. Yet it's less clear that it's a show viewers will embrace. It's relentlessly brutal — justified given the story and the times — but a barrier for some. And as gorgeous and elaborate as Boardwalk is, it can sometimes feel almost comically ostentatious.

Still, there are worse artistic crimes than overdoing the details. Boardwalk has the potential to be a great series — and re-establish HBO as a series Emmy contender, which is what it was built to do.

If that's a gamble, it's one worth taking.

Boardwalk Empire
HBO, Sunday, 9 ET/PT
* * * * (out of four)