Has its moments, but highly overrated...

Rating: 6/10 (14 April 2008)

Whilst this film does have a fairly interesting story to tell (although not as interesting as Goodfellas) there are far too many things wrong here for the film to be hailed as a masterpiece as some people are doing...
First there is the length. At 4 hours long, this takes patience beyond tolerable levels. Whilst films like Dances With Wolves & 2001: A Space Odyssey consistently give the viewer many great things to look at & listen to even when the story isn't moving, this film is far too pedestrian with none of that polish. Obviously the Director has used the run time to fully indulge himself - and some shots do work quite well - but we don't get anything approaching the beautiful docking scene in 2001 to justify the long run time. Obviously the studio tried to hack the film down to 139 minutes (which was even less successful), but a more sequential film would have been shorter - which leads nicely on to...
The jumps through time. These didn't add to the experience much for me - and judging by many reviews, just served to confuse a lot of people; just watch Pulp Fiction to see how this should be done. Also this unnecessarily complicated the plot...
If even the people giving this film good reviews are saying that it needs to be watched 2 or 3 times to fully understand what is going on, then how can that be a good thing? Films like the Sixth Sense which take on a new light when watched again (after you find out certain key points) are far different from films that you have to watch twice just to understand them. This film could be 2 points higher as a result of better editing & a tighter grip on the story. I for one sometimes get annoyed when I listen to directors saying that they chopped things out for pacing or purely just to reduce the run time - especially in films like Terminator 2 or Leon which are better in their Directors Cut guise. However this film could have benefited from that process.
Overall, the acting was good, as was the casting - the younger versions of the main characters even looked similar to their older counterparts. The Direction, Cinematography and Music have their merits (these saved me from rating the film an average 5/10) and there is much to enjoy in spells, but as a whole, I think the film lacks enough visual punch & originality to outdo the Godfather et al. Gangster movie? Yes, but this is no Goodfellas.