Good ... not great

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2016)

I like this film, but I certainly don't love it. My biggest problem with it is that I just don't like Nicholson in this one. It's not that I think he gives a particularly bad performance. I just think he's the entirely wrong person to be playing this part. (Is there a right person to be playing an apparently Irish gangster named "Frank Costello"? Where the hell does that name come from?) He really seems to be walking around in a different film from the rest of the cast. His giant presence seems to pull the focus of the film away from where it should be sitting with Damon and DiCaprio. I have a few other small issues. Scorsese's usually infallible feel for music seems to have let him down here since he includes both the intolerably awful Dropkick Murphys and a terrible version of "Confortably Numb" by Roger Waters with Van Morrison's band (???). I do like Vera Farmiga quite a lot here, but I'm ultimately unclear why her character is in the film.