Great shooting and acting, but a disappointing plot

Rating: 6/10 (4 April 2010)

Suspense and thrill will not lack (will abound, indeed) in this movie, not so much in the action performed, but in what you expect to happen: an effective and consolidated stratagem to keep the audience attention alive. But in the end, all that well built tension and intriguing atmosphere turn into nothing. The different and apparently fragmented plot levels (medical experimentation on humans, Nazi references, the death of Teddy's wife) seem to be leading to a deep final revelation, which in the end is reduced to a very cliché ending, really not deserving all that build up.
I have not read the novel, but know that the movie proved adherence to it, so no fault is to be found in Scorsese's work, who, in a way, put too much technical skill for a plot which did not deserve such effort. Also Di Caprio, brilliant as usual, offers too a focused, tragic and important interpretation. Good photography also gets to offer a scary and enthralling atmosphere, but in the end, every technical quality seems somehow wasted on a banal and cliché plot. Not that a movie should have an original ending twist to be a good movie, but such emotional intensity, and length (it takes almost two hours to get till the end), should come to a deeper or at least less banal conclusion.
As a whole, it would be not fair to judge the movie in a negative way: great quality is evident in shooting and acting (but Scorsese and Di Caprio are a certainty of excellence), but what prevails is disappointment and a sense of wasted energy, put by the director and the cast, and requested to the viewer.