Great film by Scorsese

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2004)

This is a pretty impressive film; most of its qualities are good, if not great. However, it still falls short on a few points. The ending seems somewhat anti-climactic. Much of the film is overly Hollywood-like, as well. The climax is a letdown. Overall, the film is great, but it could have been fantastic. The love story is also too much of what we've seen hundreds of times before. The plot is good, and tells a tale that very well could have happened. It's fairly historically accurate. It's somewhat well-paced, but I ended up being bored in the last half hour or so, and downright disliking the very end. The acting is great. All of the actors pull off very good performances. Diaz, Day-Lewis, DiCaprio, all great. The supporting characters were well-acted as well. The characters were well-written, and mostly credible, though there were at least once where a character seemed to go very much out of character, apparently just to move the story along. The cinematography is great. It has a pretty good atmosphere, and there are scenes that feel very much like you are watching actual footage from that time. The film suffers somewhat from being predictable; it holds very few surprises, partly due to it being fairly formulaic. The film is well-done and the scenes that are supposed to be so, are intense. The special effects are well-done, and the direction is good. All in all, an entertaining and well-done film which is unfortunately dragged downwards in quality by various Hollywood-like qualities. I recommend it to fans of the respective actors, fans of the director, and people who enjoy watching films that depict certain time-periods to such accuracy. 8/10