I can't believe this dross won any Oscars at all

Rating: 3/10 (17 January 2010)

A wonderful cast, an interesting story, reasonably good performances. If only Scorcese hadn't directed it, and whoever edited this over- extended, self-preoccupied and frequently irrelevant series of plot points should be shot. Plainly the stellar cast have congregated around Scorcese and it probably wouldn't have been made without him. Obviously, everyone involved were pretty pleased to be together on the project. That comes through and that's good. However, a whole heap of entirely unimportant, improvised tooling about by the ensemble desperately needs to be hacked out of the final reel, which Scorcese plainly couldn't bring himself to do. His affections for the cast have got in his way.
There is a good film hidden in this bad film. Judicious cutting of VERY expendable material that does nothing for either character development or plot would deliver a terrific, tight-packed little thriller with enjoyable performances by most cast members. Agree Mark Wahlberg did a great job, and Di Caprio was very watchable. Matt Damon extended his range a little, but overall finds it hard to be anyone other than himself, in this film and most others. Fortunately he happens to be an interesting kind of guy.