Well made, but dull

Rating: 4/10 (13 January 2004)

It would be wrong to say this film is rubbish, it certainly isn't, but it's important to remember that a films purpose is to entertain, inform or move you in some way. Unfortunately this film is devoid of all three.
Like a number of films it's technically well made, the acting is fine, but the story and the characters are exceedingly uninteresting. People say that DeNiro's performance is amazing, well, I don't know how you can say that. His character comes across as selfish paranoid psycho, with absolutely no morals and no redeeming qualities. Yet we know he has married twice, so there must have be something people liked about him. Unfortunately the film is too heavy on the negative side, no balance is shown to Jake's character, so the believability and ultimately the interest in the film disappears.

In fact this is rather typical of Scorsese, a very overrated Writer/Director. I liked Taxi Driver and GoodFellas, but most of his films are actually very poor (Casino, Gangs of NY, Cape Fear).
Forgettable and uninteresting, yet technically well made film.
4/10.