Pardon?

Rating: 4/10 (16 February 2005)

I saw this on the top 250 and, being IMDb faithful, watched it with my heart set on a fine piece of movie-making.
What the hell?
This movie was...well...not terrible, but it sure wasn't what I'd call good. On second thought, this movie was terrible. The acting was stale (even De Niro, sad to say), the screenplay was cliché-ridden, the cinematography was substandard (even for De Palma), the soundtrack was cheesy and unsuited to the action, the storytelling was implausible and pathetic, and the gunfights were laughable. And to top off all of the gooey goodness that is this film, the audience is treated to the most ridiculous and frankly idiotic courtroom sequence I've ever seen put to film. This movie tries to survive by placing a gunfight or a gallon of blood into every scene, and fails simply because it's too cheesy and contrived to be a serious drama, and too dull to be a true action movie.
Now, I realize that a lot of people must have liked this movie (#237?), so my problem is probably that I'm an idiot or that I watched The Karate Kid too many times in my youth. Still, I simply don't understand what people thought was great about this film. I gave it four stars out of ten because I liked the homage to Battleship Potemkin. You know, the baby carriage on the stairs? I think it was during the 800th (give or take) gunfight in this movie. Anyway, that's my two cents. Don't bother.