While I can't deny that his movies are often entertaining, I have always personally felt that Martin Scorsese is just a little overrated in his abilities. His use of flashy stylistics in a good number of his movies seems to scream "Look at me, aren't I an imaginative director?". His best film that I have seen is the one with the least added flourishes, the superlative "Raging Bull".

For this remake it appears it was business as usual, though. The dull film stock to convey a 1950's setting was so bland as to be a distraction in itself. The melodramatic close-ups combined with the sub-par imitation of the classic "Psycho" score are more likely to provoke smirks of derision than a sense of atmospheric terror. The score for "Psycho" was brilliantly unnerving, this 'homage' just sounds shrill and annoying. Even the cast, who can be decent at times, deliver histrionic performances that just scream 'caricature'; the notable exception to this being an intelligent turn by Lewis as the impressionable teenage daughter of the Bowden family.

The worst acting offender here is surprisingly De Niro. Sure, he looks suitably menacing but as soon as he opens his mouth that aura just drains away. Now I'm no expert on American accents, me originally coming from near Manchester in England an' all, but surely he could've come up with a more convincing Southern drawl than that? Being the gifted physical actor he is, he almost overcomes this fatal flaw, but not quite. It was disconcerting for me, as a De Niro fan, to be wishing he was off screen, rather than rapt at his performance.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS.)

The over-the-top style of the whole movie extends to the ridiculously overblown finale. When will Scorsese learn that underplaying the situation can sometimes build tension just as effectively as giving the viewer a visual and sonic bombardment? I also thought that he was too respected a reputation to resort to the 'killer-not-dead-yet' cheap trick that less talented individuals might employ.

All in all, a thoroughly ridiculous 'thriller'. Scorsese and De Niro have done MUCH better work together.

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negative