Aarcflick

 The construction of the glass structure where Hillary Clinton would eventually concede the 2016 election might not seem like the stuff of gripping television. And indeed, it isn’t—at least not in *The Westies*, the MGM+ drama about how the Irish gang of the same name tried to cash in on the building of the Javits Center at the far end of Manhattan. Despite featuring veteran actors like J.K. Simmons and Titus Welliver—playing a local crime boss and the corrupt cop in his pocket, respectively—*The Westies* fails to offer a fresh perspective within a well-worn genre. Oscar winner J.K. Simmons plays Eamon Sweeney, a Hell’s Kitchen kingpin looking to turn the Javits project into a lucrative revenue stream for his associates: an interchangeable crew of young thugs with names like Sean and Connor. Sweeney’s plans require coming to terms with the Italian Mafia, which vastly outnumbers his dwindling gang; among them is an up-and-coming, skeptical John Gotti (Hamish Allan-Headley), the most...