If you are a fan of Scorsese’s work in the 70s or with Goodfellas, I doubt you will be disappointed. The cast is fucking great, with DeNiro and Pacino turning in their best performances in a long time. In many ways it feels like a film that was made in the 70s.
Scorsese is not simply playing his greatest hits here. Which means (and this might bother people who are expecting intense old-school Scorsese) the film is long and contemplative. It didn’t feel slow to me, but it is very leisurely paced. In a 3 1/2 hour long film, there’s about 5 minutes of mob violence, some of it offscreen and most shot in a less visceral way than Goodfellas. It is perhaps one of the least romanticized gangster films ever made. In this respect, it is the polar opposite of Goodfellas.
i loved it.