The elegaic ‘The Last Waltz’, the raw, chopped liver slice-of-Little Italy-life ‘Mean Streets’, the shocking, bloodied-finger-to-the-temple Taxi Driver, the agonising scream that is ‘After Hours’, the unsettling, underrated and influential ‘King of Comedy’, the cinematic masterpiece that is ‘Raging Bull’, the ferocious, shoe-shine boxly watchable ‘Goodfellas’, the Paul Newmanesque ‘Color of Money’, the glitzy, underbelly glory that is ‘Casino’, the immense ‘Gangs of New York’ the slightly deteriorating but slam dunkingly watchable ‘Wolf of Wall Street’…what the friggin’ hell happened Marty? Eh? Whaddya nutz? Whyddya wanna make a mook ova movie? Gathering the acting clan together again may have been sound on paper, but digitally youthing their faces was a monumental mistake, especally as you inexplicably ignored the fact that their body movements were those of doddery pensioners. De Niro staggered his way through the movie like a Thunderbirds puppet, and that shop owner went down like a professional footballer when the House Painter barely touched him with a stilted, slow-motion jab. The scene was risable and blew a large, credibility hole in the movie. Joe Pesci…well, he hasn’t aged well, has he? As a young man in the movie, he looked old, craggy and saggy and, as a old man, he looked like a fossil. Al Pacino? Maybe I was too influenced by seeing Jack Nicholson in the role, but Al just didn’t cut the Jimmy Hoffa mustard for me. Surely a different actor would have been better, maybe Stephen Graham, who actually looks more like Hoffa than Pacino. The real Hoffa came across as a bustling, little bundle of energy, but Pacino looked like he was in need of a retirement community in Florida. And Harvey Keitel’s role; too short and too pointless.
As to the actual movie, it was a yawning trip down memory lane, a rehashed flashbacker that simply reminded us how old the actors were. Again, we saw a bunch of thugs doing thuggish things, but unlike the tasty triumvirate in Goodfellas, there was no humour in anything they did, no memorable scenes that will go down in move folklore and no sparkling dialogue. The look of the film was fine; something that Scorcese has always done magnificently well, but the whole thing moved along like a clapped-out, old banger, getting to the finish line in three and a half hours, when two and a half would have been so much better. How many wives’ smoke stops did we have to witness to get the point? It had about as much life as…well, Joe Pesci. Surely, Marty, there was a whole host of actors that you could have considered for the younger versions instead of digitalising the usual suspects. Look what De Niro did for Godfather II.
What I found incredible about the reviews is that, by and large, they were good. There were criticisms of the digital faces, but they simply lauded el Maestro Marty, as if it were sacrilegious to adversely criticise his work. Even the choice of music was predictable and unimaginitive where, normally, it’s a standout aspect of this films.
The one redeeming feature was Ray Romano; he actually came across as being human. Why haven’t other directors recognised his talents? Maybe one of the Mexican wave of directors could give him a movie to star in. And maybe Marty could take a look at the films that have been made by del Toro, Iñárritu and Cuarón over the past few years to boost his sadly flagging creativity. Or he could just retire.
Minority News Report 