If you like movies, you will love this movie.

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2006)

I don't know any cahiers du cinema stuff but this is a mad enjoyable gangster/cop movie. It was so much fun I sat through it twice. The whole audience, mostly senior citizens and crackheads in the middle of the afternoon in Times Square, was cheering and laughing all through it. The only reason I didn't actually cry was I kept telling myself that: A. I may not under any circumstances cry in a gangster movie; and B. as Mom always said, It's only a movie and Sounder/Flag/E.T./Johnny Boy didn't die in real life. When I walked out after 5+ hours I had a huge smile on my face and an urge to tell every single person I know to go see it.
This movie had everything: good guys, bad guys, chases, mad suspense, clever cussing, piles of cocaine, Patsy Cline, exploding cars, garroting, barfights, insectivores, literary quotations, brain spray, blood splatter, and Ray Freaking Winstone to boot! This movie rocked. If you don't like it you don't know how to enjoy movies. The only legitimate reason not to love this movie is if you are turned off by man's inhumanity to man, cuz there is mad violence. But there was only one scene where I had to cover my eyes and it wasn't nearly as gruesome as Syriana with the fingernails or Reservoir Dogs with the ear.