Fits well generally but lacks something

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2006)

Beautiful crafted movie. The soundtrack including 60's and 70' rock music and vintage looking, expressive visuals reminded me, keeping the reference scale in mind, of such classic gangster epic as Once Upon a time in America, Goodfellas or even Scarface. Demme's film looks as if it were made 20 years earlier, and I'm sure it's what he intended. The first person narrative works like a charm. Ray Liotta, one of my favorites delivers brilliantly as the hard working, loving father(the father-son relationship is touching indeed) little man crushed by the system. Penelope Cruz is beautiful and temperamental as we have come to expect. The only aspect short of brilliant is Depp's acting. While being an interesting actor, who generally fits very well in the movies he chooses to appear in(this one included), and clearly has the best agent in the world, judging by his roles in the last 15 years, he doesn't have sufficient dramatic power to carry a part like this quite all the way(like Liotta did in Goodfellas, for example). Also it lacks memorable quotes altogether, which is a negative trade when it comes to movies of this sort(and is one more reason this movie couldn't achieve greatness). Nonetheless it's a very well crafted drug-lord rise and fall epic.