Overblown, over-indulgent tosh

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2003)

I twice fell asleep briefly in this film, which could have had an hour chopped out of it and it would have still been boring.
This is what happens when a famous director gets to make exactly the film he wants, sure it looked expensive and had high production values but Leo is too weak to carry the part, and for a cross between King Oedipus and a Jacobean revenge tragedy, there was all the blood and none of the revenge. Daniel Day-Lewis was playing perilously close to a pantomime villain (hell, he even had the swirly moustaches). In the (surprisingly packed) cinema I saw this in there was even a bit of laughter in inappropriate parts too, which I hadn't heard since seeing 'Pearl Harbour' two years ago.
I'm afraid Scorcese cannot film a taut scene, there are endless minutes of scene setting and good (some even excellent) actors wasted in bit parts. A complete turkey in my eyes I'm afraid and I'm usually a generous reviewer.