Certainly not the best of M.S.'s movies...

Rating: 8/10 (14 October 2006)

The actors may have been the only reason to pay $7.00 to see this movie. Their charisma definitely lent to a story that only had one hidden moral: since every "warrior" dies in the end, the futility of joining one side over the other makes loyalty or morality ultimately worthless. A much cooler film "Reservoir Dogs" handles this with much more spunk and awe. Worth seeing, but not buying the DVD when it comes out. I think it was somewhat of a waste of Jack Nicholson's presence, but after "The Pledge" I think he's lost stock as an avante-gard visionary. Perhaps he has become too willing to do projects on the Director's past work to be judgmental or critical enough about his recent script picks. How many years does he have left to be wasting time on movies like About Schmitt, The Pledge, and Wolf. Mark Walberg came off as trying too hard to be a bad ass, the baby face didn't go with what should have been an older actor's role--someone with hair on their chest. Matt Damon and Leonardo Di Caprio were well peered, though. I found the energy levels seemed to keep the movie fresh even when the characters had all been done before. I hope Scorsese can find his way back to doing movies like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Cape Fear, and even After Hours--movies that created a new adventure upon unexpected paths.