Too many cooks spoil the broth....kick them out of the editing room

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2006)

I was watching 'The Departed' and marvelled at how gorgeous movies can look, sound and be scripted today with imperfections. It doesn't matter why, but it does matter when one of my considered best directors may allow insiders/outsiders have a say or a bit of a fiddle in the editing room, which I think has happened in this instant. Life is compromise. I may be wrong.
This is an immediate response after a nights sleep - DiCaprio, Wahlberg, Baldwin, Damon and O'Hara immediately fill the screen with ongoing possibilities. I'd like to think this is because Scorsese let them move. Maybe they do it themselves...
Nicholson, Sheen and Winstone et al, all these actors have achieved in their own right, yet increasingly seem to be playing themselves without anyone saying,'excuse me...didn't you do this in your last five to ten movies.....?' Maybe its time directors/actors used their well-honed skills to move on? A braver push and shove! Jack must be mentioned because caricatures are as visible in cinema as they are on the canvas. He's having fun and there is a weary laugh right down to the rat on the railing at the end and I'm not sure if there was an intended tip of the hat to Scarface, but, its not worth a nod as its been done by Pacino excellently.It gets harder to surprise -i'll squash a fly and lick it off my hand or wave an exaggerated artificial penis (ahoy young man) in an underground theatre at my informer, stand in some squalid hole in the wall bar with blood-soaked butcher arms..........It got a bit silly. Jack or his director made it a bit embarrassing.
No problem with intelligent violence & sex.......... but less is more.