Good, but by no means brilliant

Rating: 5/10 (30 October 2006)

What's happened to the Scorsese of old? Is this the same director of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Bringing Out The Dead? With his last two films being fairly mediocre, I didn't go into this film with high expectations. Being based on a Hong Kong shoot-'em-up, there were no illusions that this would be high art. Still, the film just didn't work for me.
The relationships depicted were not convincing and virtually all the female roles women were simply obligatory window dressing. Vera Farmiga's role was weak, and there seemed to be little chemistry between her and Matt Damon's character.
There was a tangible sense of tension, particularly for DiCaprio's character, and he played his part well. Mark Wahlberg is an actor that always seems to shine, and doesn't seem to get much screen time. Mostly the performances were good, but there were too many flat spots that broke the tension, and the film would have benefited from being cut to two hours. However, the film did move at a fast pace, and this helped to mask some of the many implausibilities. I found neither the violence nor language offensive, and quite appropriate for the genre.
Scorsese is renowned for his technical excellence. There seemed to be none of the stylish use of camera work and long takes of his better films. With this and his previous two films, it seems to me that Scorsese is struggling to find his earlier creative core. There are some great crime films done previously (some by Scorsese himself). The best for me was Takeshi Kitano's Hana Bi, which has a lot in common with Scorsese's earlier work.
Perhaps the director is suffocating under the expectations based on his previous great works. Perhaps he is caught up in a sense of self-importance. Maybe he would achieve a better outcome if he didn't depend so much on big name actors and big budgets and got back to his roots. The film is not bad, but it's not that good either. It's my least favourite of Scorsese's.