great director at work...

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2002)

Possible Spoilers.
It appears that Scorsese loves to film gangster movies, not only that, he loves to base his movies on character studies.
This movie without Scorsese would had been great. Since we have great acting from Ray and Joe, (Joe was especially good but he did the exact same thing in Casino). Bobby in this film was up to his normal standard but it was obvious he didn't want to steal the show.
However, the main key to the success of this movie is about the method that the story is presented. The way Scorsese told this story was speical. It can even be compared to the great camera works from Citizen Kane. There are so many different things to look out for in the movie, you have to see it twice or more. The first time you will just stick to the plot. The second time you have to look for all the camera angles! I am no movie critic, but there was that scene when Ray and Robert talking in coffe shop. The scene was filmed so that the foreground main character stays the same while the background (outside of window) gradually gets larger. And later near the end of the movie, Ray attempts to pull a "Woody" stunt by talking straight to the camera.
This movie really can't be watched as if it is a normal film like spiderman or star wars...it must be watched in the light of other greats like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.