Remember when Scorsese used to make GREAT movies?

Rating: 6/10 (2 October 2006)

This is not a terrible movie, but it's hardly worth the investment of 2-1/2 hours of your time.
Mostly it feels like a well-filmed (and over-long) TV cop show episode. All very tense. All very "who's really the bad guy and who has figured out who is good and who is bad" with Boston ethic gloss on it (lots of "Southie" accents. Lots of "F..k you" "No F..k YOU" dialog. Lots of bloodshed at unexpected times (it is Scorsese after all).
But what it seems to lack is that ironic edge that makes the great Scorsese films great. It's just a little too much involved in the plot.
The acting is...expensive. I was mostly impressed with Scorsese's ability to convince a studio to pay to have Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson ALL appear in one movie at the same time and then to also add in Mark Wahlbern, Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen. But none of the performances were anything to write home about (though doubtless there will be a huge Oscar push for everybody -- but I'm thinking no winners because, if nothing else, they may all cancel each other out.) Damon and DiCaprio's important scenes felt a little "acting school." Martin Sheen was working hard not to be President Bartlett. Wahlberg was walking through a "Southie" caricature and Nicholson was once again trotting out the old crazy Jack routine.
Visually, things were not helped by the fact that the film does a good job of looking like Boston, which I generally find to be one of the least interesting looking large American cities. Even the iconic (in the movie) shot of the State House is sort of dull and when two characters talk about moving to another city, I found myself thinking "Please do, I'm tired of looking at Boston."
Some nitpicks --
1. A slightly big deal is made of the fact that the shrink didn't go to Harvard. Then why is she wearing a Harvard shirt later in Damon's apartment?
2. This is yet another one of those movies that mostly makes sense, until it has a plot point involving technology. The, it behaves as if no one involved has ever really used anything invented after 1970. We get miraculously taped cell phone conversations that clearly weren't being taped when we saw them the first time. Or police personnel records that can be completely deleted by the press of one button by one person. Very Charlie's Angels.
3. In an already long movie, why do we have to see the whole "giving the envelope to the shrink" scene when the fact that she has the envelope does not have anything to do with how the last 15 minutes of the movie works out?
...and a couple of other similar silly things that kind of don't really add up when you think about them. They don't ruin the movie, but add to the sense that one is watching a film that is a bit more slipshod than it should be, given the high gloss of its cast and crew.
So, all-in-all, a movie to pass away a slow night at home on the DVD but nothing worth rushing out to the cinema for.