If This is An Eight, Scorcese's Films are 15s

Rating: 1/10 (4 February 2010)

There are films that are "good" because the critics say they are. And there are films that are just... good. Like the most recent Johnny Depp travesty about another old time bad boy, "TU" was hyped like mad when it came out. Compared to it's principle opposition for little statues ("Moonstruck," "The Last Emperor," "Broadcast News," "Fatal Attraction") that year, "TU" is well-mounted fluff.
The account of real-life Elliot Ness and his "G men" is so tortured it's barely recognizable. (This is, scene by scene, about as fictional as the late '50s / early '60s TV series of the same name.) There are no characters here, anywhere. Sean Connery's turn is cardboard, and this is not one of Andy Garcia's career makers, either. De Niro's portrayal is a direct lift from Rob Steiger's of the same character in a pre-De Palma version of "Scarface" called "Al Capone" (1959). Costner made more sense in "JFK" (which was another stretch).
Compared to any of Curtiz's, Coppola's, Scorcese's or the Coen Brother's gangster epics, this is old school comic book stuff that looks pretty thin stacked up against work like "Public Enemy" (1931, not 2009), "Angels With Dirty Faces," "The Roaring Twenties," "The Godfather," "Miller's Crossing," "Goodfellas" or "Casino."
But I can understand why it works for some people: Big-name stars, good production values, manipulative tear-jerker scenes when good guys are killed, retribution and revenge, bullets and blood spraying. At that sort of thing, De Palma really was a "master" of lowbrow shoot-em-up.