DiCaprio finally comes of age under a worthy father.

Rating: 10/10 (25 May 2009)

I've seen the film only once, which is not quite enough to catch some crucial details about the father at the beginning. But the film is essentially a frantic gangster send-up like "Goodfellas" plus Hamlet with a theological twist: it's the search for identity and for the father, which are essentially the same thing. It's also a film in which DiCaprio is no longer seen as a mere teenager or, recalling Spielberg's leaden caper film, where Sheen is more caricature than believable character.
There's a scene in the film between DiCaprio and Nicholson during which I was conscious for the first time that the former could hold his own--as a mature, believable, adult actor--and with the very best of them. And what a crucial scene that turns out to be. In this modern-day "Hamlet" tale about a young man's desperate search for identity, he gains it--threefold-- and just at the moment we're convinced he's lost everything. In the film's last incredibly tense, head-spinning moments, we learn that 1. DiCaprio rather than Matt Damon is the trusted "son" of the mafia father figure played by Nicholson (Damon's character rejects outright the sentimental notion of being a "son" to Nicholson); 2. we are assured that DiCapio's identity is not lost when Mark Wahlberg's character, as a surrogate for Martin Sheen's character which, in turn, is a surrogate father to DiCaprio's, shows up to dispose of the impostor; 3.finally, the deal is triply "clinched" at our realization that the father of the baby being borne by Madolyn is not Damon's but DiCaprio's.
The line from "Hamlet" that's recited is "Readiness is all." But life, Scorsese, seems to be saying, is far more unpredictable and ludicrous, far more messy than this: none of us is ever ready (Nicholson's line to the effect that "we're all dying" suggests as much), and DiCaprio's character seems the least ready of all. Yet in the midst of all the violence and bloodshed, and despite all the lunacy and confusion, justice and clarity win out after all. This is, in many respects, the film befitting a mature, or "senior," director, who is moreover a man of faith. Unlike Coppola's fascination with the "humanness" of mafia families, Scorsese seems more interested in the "humanity" of these unsaintly, fallen prodigals who come to symbolize us all: they represent the universal human condition in all its absurdity and hope for redemption. For Scorsese they, no less than all of us, must not be consigned outright to the circle of the eternally damned. Even in their twisted, misguided, and confused relations, fathers and sons manage to find one another, mothers produce the sons by the fathers they truly love, the identity that is at once so elusive and questionable emerges after all--there's no question about its being a human identity and there's even a possibility that it retains much that is holy, emanating from a supreme father who ultimately pilots this ship of violent fools to a peaceful end.