I was not sure why I chose this movie for the Friday evening get out but it turned out to be a good ride. Coryand from Taiwan claims the movie is not as intense as the original but I guess Scorcese intended to have that effect, with a ubiquitously funny Jack Nicholson playing the all powerful Costello and Mark Wahlberg’s in-your-face one liners that add to the levity.

Luckily for me, I did not watch the original and so, I can not comment on the lack of intensity or the depth of characters. However, I can say Leonardo more than makes up for the gravity end of things with a crafty transposition from a serious cop to a reckless renegade who tries desperately to step into his father’s shoes. To most mainstream American movie viewers, the movie is a thrill ride and its Imdb ratings seem to suggest the same. The movie even hit the Imdb top 250 as of today morning, something that I am not really sure it deserves but hey! the audience has spoken!

8.6/10 (15,082 votes)

However, in retrospect, I feel that the story had a lot of depth that was not explored very well. For example, going back to Coryand’s Imdb comments, the elevator scene in the end evoked a giggle from the audience when I was watching, something that I was not sure the director would appreciate.

The movie, in the end, feels like an objectivist’s approach to optimism that selfishness has a law and code of its own and will eventually serve justice, though necessarily not in ways intended. The leading plot line, as you know, is a running race to unearth moles on both sides of an engaging fued between Costello & the State police. Only the audience and very few characters know who they are - Matt Damon in the Boston State police and Dicaprio in Costello’s gang. Predictably, there are some interesting cat and mouse chases and over-the-edge sequences that morphed to look like bar table conversations.

The music, with an Irish influence as expected, is something that I would want to hear again as much as the dialogue. Not too much of philosophy, very few quotes here and there but mostly, raw, powerful, American-Irish gangster language with a punch of Nicholsonian comedy here and there. It opens with a few strong lines as Jack stirs up the audience with something like - “25 years from when it was difficult for an Irish man to get a day job, we had the presidency..that is why, I say no one gives a …. you have to take it”.

Two Thumbs up from my end.