Not Impressed - and No, I haven't seen the original

Rating: 5/10 (4 November 2006)

I haven't read all of the reviews of this movie, but the ones I have read seem to generally fall into one of two categories: (a) I loved it or (b) I have seen Infernal Affairs and this doesn't compare.
Well I have not seen IA (although after all of the positive comments I have read in this thread, I hope to soon be rectifying that) but I was still extremely disappointed by this movie. It contains huge holes in the plot and the ending is nothing short of ludicrous. What's more it is over long and really did nothing but bore me for most of the 2 1/2 hours.
......... Spoilers Here .......
How could Sullivan not be considered as the main suspect of being Costello's mole in the troopers given that he is Irish and from the same nieghbourhood in Boston as Costello.
How could Costello so readily accept Costigan as a right-hand man given his history? Why didn't the Costello man killed in the raid where Martin Sheen's character got killed not explain to anyone else that he had given Costigan the wrong address??? Did the makers really think that exposing Sullivan's buddy from cadet school as the other mole was worth doing. Not only was the 'twist' contrived, but the fact that he gets killed almost immediately makes it completely pointless.
If Dignam was so willing to kill Sullivan without actual proof, why didn't he act earlier, e.g. on Costello??? And so on ...
And on a final note: why oh why did they get the fine English character actor Ray Winstone to try and adapt that oh so poor American accent? I could have (begrudgingly) forgiven a phony Irish one (it wouldn't have been the first) but surely it sounded pathetic to a US audience??? Actually, even the US actors seemed to be attempting a Boshton (sic) drawl, and even to my untutored ear it seemed to miss the mark significantly.