Violence, Language & maybe a bit over-clever

Rating: 8/10 (6 October 2006)

I will start by saying if you are not a fan of very strong violence or very strong language, you should probably steer clear of this one. If you have seen any Scorsese movie before, you should know what to expect, but be warned this should be able to give goodfellas a run for its money on the cold blooded killings and swearing front.
I did like this movie a lot, but did have a hard time keeping up with it at times. There is A lot of people being undercover, switching sides and generally lieing to each other as to who's side they are on. Luckily it didn't get to the point of trying to be too over-clever (see oceans 12) but at times it was trying, and I feel the average viewer would have a hard time keeping up with this story.
Jack Nocholsons character reminded me a lot of Ben Kingsley's in Sexy Beast. A very intimidating and unpredictable man, who uses extreme violence and language on an everyday basis. And even though they both did not have much screen time (compared to some other major characters)I think everyone will agree they were both the best thing about both of these films.
Throughout watching this film, I couldn't help think it reminded me a lot of Michael Mann's action-drama "Heat". Both films used a lot of character development to make the shootout scenes that much more rewarding. Both used a mix of mellow and tense music to add extra depth to the scenes, and both used the entire first three quarters of the movie just as a warm up for the end when all the action took place, and you finally figured everything out.
I'm sure a lot of people will like the final 20 minutes a lot, I felt a bit like as there was so much time spent on developing thee plot and characters, Marty felt as though there wasn't much else left to do so just decided to kill everyone off. But I guess this was the way it turned out in the original, so I cant comment on that.
Overall I liked this film a lot. I think it should have maybe ended about 10 minutes earlier, as at one point near the very end I thought to myself "Most of the characters are gone, what is left to do"? I'm still deciding if it was my favourite of the year so far, but after 6 months or so waiting for the release, I think I can safely say I was not disappointed.