overblown, overdone, under-interesting hype

Rating: 1/10 (4 August 2006)

I waited for the DVD release before I saw this, and I was glad I did. The rental was a lot cheaper than a theater ticket would have been, and I was able to pause the DVD for a stretch break or a little walk when needed, which, sadly, was often. If a story line can catch your interest then the time can fly by, this story line was just so excessive and so overly violent and chock full of character quirks and craziness that time slogged on slow as a mouse in molasses. Other people have said similar, the characters were so despicable, disgusting, dehumanizing, that you really didn't give a rat's rear about any of them. There were one or two decent-to-good performances, but the rest of them you had to figure were cast for name value or because they had something on Scorcese that he didn't want made public. Potential spoiler --- when Leo DiCaprio gets his face slashed in the knife fight, so badly that he is truly horrible to look at, you never really see the supposed slash, and within a day or so he looks like he may have slept on a chenille bedspread and gotten a line or two on his face, but not the side-show ogre they would have had you believe. Was there too much concern that mar his pretty boy puss and the preteens will exit the theater? I think Leonardo has some definite talent (witness him in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?") but come on, he was slashed and stabbed in a knife fight, and in a day or two looks only as if someone had woken him early from his nap and he was a wee bit cranky. Scorcese -- you should be ashamed for this travesty.