I guess watching paint dry can be Oscar material

Rating: 1/10 (26 February 2007)

Make it long, add top star billing, and spend a zillion dollars, and I guess anything can receive an award. Silly me, I thought original, provocative, and at the very least, plausible story telling was needed for good drama.
Let me start by adding, that "great" actors are useless when miss-cast. I'm sorry, but Damon and DiCaprio's persona's and looks are both too soft to play hard edge characters. Wahlberg and Sheen were so absent of realism, they compromised important plot dialog. Baldwin's attempt to add some comic flare came across as more buffoonery then wit. Even Nicholson's part was more cartoon then character. (Quintisential Jack)! Costello should have been cast by a hungry unknown, (from Boston).
What makes this very pretentious movie really bad, are the "holes". This movie leaked like a sieve. Allow me to address a few:
1) The premise alone. You have a large police department investigating a large crime family, yet only three members, (one of which is not even out of the academy), will alone without the resources of the department infiltrate an organized mob presumably using a mole. 2) If costigan is suppose to have been dismissed from the force, then why is he being seen by a civil service police psychiatrist. 3) If costigan was pulled out of the academy specifically for the benefit of his anonymity, then why does everyone he meets, know him and his family. 4) Does the department acknowledge the existence of costigan or not? His entire identity can not be conveniently eliminated from all record and then later resurface for a meritorious award. 5) If Costello was an F.B.I. informant, were the hell were the F.B.I., and better yet, what bigger fish would the F.B.I. want, then Costello himself. 6) Speakng of other agencies, were the hell were the Boston police during all these inner city homicides going on inside their jurisdiction.
The ending alone was most pathetic due to the fact there was no feasible conclusion possible based on the story's lack of continuity. I don't mind the enigmatic challenge of a smart and sophisticated screenplay, but please don't mollify me with vapid subplots.
Too much budget, and not enough substance. Unfortunately, I seem to find the latter in only foreign or independent films. Hollywood needs to to produce more movies that don't just rely on its marquee. Next time the director calls, "That's a wrap", there should be no loose ends..