Vastly Overrated. Worst "Good Film" of 2006 POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Rating: 4/10 (29 April 2007)

Maratin Scorsese has been a fixture in Hollywood for decades and members of the Motion Picture Academy must have felt that they "owed" him this Oscar for being Martin Scorsese, certainly not for this film which has more phony elements in it than any movie in recent memory. True it has 3-1/2 high profile stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg. Plus it has more violence than can be found anywhere outside a war zone and enough blood to fill your average blood bank. Scorsese has plowed this field before -- in "Goodfellas," a vastly superior movie. Why didn't I like it? Because the plot is stuffed with unbelievable elements including a three way romance between Damon as a cop, DiCaprio as an undercover agent posing as a criminal and a police psychiatrist who is treating them both ???). As for Jack Nicholson, he is reprising previous roles as the Devil, this time in the person of a crime boss who is also -- get this -- an informant for the FBI. Damon is Nicholson's "mole" inside the police department and DiCaprio is the police department's mole inside Nicholson's organization. The question is who's going to find whom first and, eventually, after many (bloody) twists and turns, who gives a damn anyway? Scorsese has made more bad films than good ones but what the hell -- it's time to give him his Oscar. As for the principals, DiCaprio presents himself as a cool but tortured soul living a dangerous lie, Damon is Damon once again, and Nicholson is out there in front of the camera chewing the scenery as he is increasingly wont to do. Wahlberg does quite a decent job in a completely over-the-top role as an overseer in the under cover section of the police department. Martin Sheen distinguishes himself in this movie (as DiCaprio's ultimate boss) primarily because his character is almost believable and he's low key where everyone else is hamming it up big time. This movie is expensive trash and its success proves once again that you can't underestimate the taste of the American people (or of the Motion Picture Academy).