What a mess

Rating: 4/10 (21 March 2010)

Oh dear, it's Scorsese does Tarantino with some Goodfellas thrown into the mix (even down to using the Human Beanz - Nobody But Me for a fight in a shop). The first third of the film is excellent, despite the constant sound of the Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter every five minutes, but then it goes downhill fast. The basic premise of a cop infiltrating the Irish mob and a mobster infiltrating the cops is good, but soon so many other things are thrown into the plot it becomes a farce. Why make Costello am FBI informer? Pointless, other than maybe to give Matt Damon a reason to kill him, although it would have been a thousand times more interesting if Damon's reason was Nicholson's dismissive treatment of him since a teenager. Why did Matt Damon's character have so much power to do as he liked in the force after only joining a few months back, able even to call a surveillance of Sheen police chief? Stupid. How come Damon didn't figure out immediately that Dicaprio's character used his phone at the meet with the Chinese? He knew the whole of Nicholson's crew apart from Costigan, but Scorsese just needed to drag the film out for another hour. Why was Baldwin's character camping it up like a pantomime dame all over the screen? The acting from Baldwin was so bad it made me think he was play acting for Damon's character and actually new he was a mole, but he didn't, Baldwin just can't act. The mess of shootings at the ending wasn't a twist either it was very dull 'ho hum' and 'so what' and i had lost interest half an hour earlier when Nicholson exited the film. After the first hour this film is silly, contrived and with no clever plot twists at all but just pointless adding of layer on layer of meaningless guff. If someone tells you this is an intricate and well plotted film, don't believe them, point them in the direction of The Usual Suspects.