My Take On The Film, Plus The Usual Digressions

Rating: 6/10 (27 August 2007)

Certainly a high-quality piece of work -- what you'd expect from Mr.Scorcese and his cast of American "A-listers" ... but ... I was (perhaps morbidly) impressed with his earlier stuff -- Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino ... ah, Casino, in which I averted my eyes for the "Vice Scene," having had enough of the routine brutality of this director's work. His glorification of gangsterism wore me out. His portrayal of psycopathy has always bordered on some sort of peculiar admiration of crime most repulsive, and he's at it again with The Departed. Enough, please, with the casual torture and slaughter, the splattering heads, the ghastly executions. Oh, for another "After Hours," a remarkable change of pace from the gruesome inhumanity of his body of work. The man made his name with too-realistic, very disturbing carnage, but it's time to move on ... I'm not suggesting a musical romance starring Robin Williams and, say, Joan Rivers, but there's nothing left for him in psycho thuggery. Time to move on!