Disliked it more and more since it was first released

Rating: 3/10 (15 September 2019)

I saw this when it was first released and it has not exactly grown on me. Scorsese peaked with "Goodfellas" and tried to re-create that magic with the same screenwriter, Nicholas Pileggi. He cast his usual trusty team of DeNiro and Pesce and Sharon Stone to play Ginger. The best of these was Stone, who reminded me of a lot of fake, greedy women I met in Las Vegas. DeNiro's character was just not likeable or sympathetic to me. Pesce was over-the-top psychopathic and his attempt at a Chicago accent was probably accurate, but annoying and distracting. James Woods was great as the slimeball Lester.
I thought the affair between Stone and the much shorter Pesce was comical.
The violence was too much, causing my date to shudder. Did we really need to see one of the gangsters spitting on the hero? Do we need to give the weak minded more examples of depravity?