Marty would have won the Oscar if he used trained chimps in this movie...

Rating: 4/10 (26 March 2007)

I didn't see the HK original, but I was still dissatisfied with the picture.
Plot holes, inconsistencies, the female lead (Jack is always fun, but is always Jack being Jack...it didn't work for me here). Damon was monochromatic, Sheen was marginal, Baldwin and Wahlberg were cartoons, (and Wahlberg has had much better performances elsewhere like Perfect Storm).
The screenplay didn't use its time wisely - too much time on stuff that didn't matter and too little on stuff that did. It was like a speech where all the bullet points are treated equally and the speaker rushes through it without stressing which ones are really important.
Holding it up to GoodFellas, which Scorsese really should have won for, this was NO GoodFellas. (The use of Gimme Shelter seemed like an homage to it). Marty is an Oscar caliber director. But this is not his best and was a pity Oscar. He was going to win it this year even if this was a feature length film about Tennessee Tuxedo.
Oh, And the rat on the railing at the end made be laugh out loud. Subtle, that.