Fuhgettaboutit

Rating: 4/10 (11 October 2015)

By now we've seen this format often enough with its well-rehearsed drills: men in suits and big ties: large hair on everyone; a soundtrack of known and more obscure period hits; moody settings in bars, wasteland, and a shabby district of town; a protagonist that is attractive in a psychopathic sense, a supporting cast of solid actors embellish the entire piece; a script with a couple of strong scenes and a memorable line and bada bing - it's a quality piece of work.
There's little wrong with this movie: some people may quibble about Depp (who seems to have channeled a bit of Nicholson from The Departed as he filched Keith Richards for the pirate series), but really, it's not worth the struggle. We've seen it, or a variation of it a few times and it does nothing new. So it grinds on to it's inevitable conclusion and then we forget about it.
If there is tedium it's in the script which skates over the material in the standard ways, although it offers a central focus over loyalty, but somehow this too has been over done, overplayed too often as well.
It's not bad, it's not great; its just another product off the line.