Another "Sympathy" Oscar

Rating: 1/10 (25 April 2007)

I'm never going to be in a position to win an Oscar, so maybe I just don't understand how goshdarn fab it is to get one. Still, were I Martin Scorsese, I can't imagine not being too ashamed to show my face in public after receiving an Oscar for this claptrap. This isn't a Martin Scorsese film; this is a Saturday Night Live sendup of a Martin Scorsese film. This is the Academy saying, "Well, we didn't give him one for Gangs of New York or for Good Fellas, and he's getting a little long in the tooth, after all. We'd better give him an Oscar for this before he croaks." Is there anyone -- ANYONE??? -- in this film, with the possible exception of DiCaprio, who isn't acting following a major dose of Xanax? (Matt Damon evidently took his Xanax after a lobotomy that was so botched that he could no longer even change his facial expression.) And what's with Mark Wahlberg's HAIR??? Is there any redeeming social value in scene after scene (after scene) of heads exploding in a red cloud? Even Scorsese is bored with depicting violence; he does it because it's expected of him, not because he really gives a damn anymore. You're stupid enough to want it; he's jaded enough to give it to you. A plot line with more holes in it than the hull of The Titanic. Characters about as appealing as Jeffrey Dahmer. You can't care what happens to a single person in this film, and you can't even care that the moral center collapses about an hour in. This film isn't even sickening; it's just dull, dull-witted, and trashy. Scorsese got his Oscar out of sympathy; too bad the film doesn't have any for the viewer.