Less Than Impressive

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 2006)

This film rollicked right along with decent acting and an intriguing plot and then, all of a sudden, it ended with a series of abrupt murders hastily filmed as if Scorsese's backers had tapped him on the shoulder and said "you're over budget fella, wrap it up, now." Clever, imaginative, striking, interesting - not this movie's ending.
But major kudos to DiCaprio for an acting tour de force - his was a splendidly executed portrait of bottled dynamite with a conscience. I was sorry Scorsese's budget clipped the role short, along with all the other characters heaved unceremoniously into the morgue's dumpster as the quickest, dirtiest, cheapest way to tie up all the story's threads.
Much more satisfying in this genre of "mole tasked to find the mole" is Kenneth Fearing's "The Big Clock." Now THERE'S an imaginative tale, well told, and without a big pile of corpses at the end.
Mentioned countless times already, but here're my two cents to help bring the total in the jar to serious money: FAR too much gratuitous obscenity larded dialogue - it's WHAT'S said that gives dialogue its punch, not how many times the F word can get shoehorned in between the preposition and the period.