prodigalyankee

I agree with others who have noted that Scorsese seems to be struggling with brevity and perhaps even directness in his storytelling. On the other hand, the performance by Robert De Niro was in my very humble opinion one of the finest he has ever turned in, and I have seen every single Minute he has on film. Similarly, this new actress who is exploding on the scene, Lily Gladstone., is simply a phenomenon of nature. She is effortless and frankly, I think she enhances DeCaprio's performance immensely. She essentially gives Leonardo someone to play off and their "dance", especially when they are alone in the bedroom, it's just simply a wonder.

The topic is incredible. This is an encyclopedic treatment of the origins and evolution of contemporary music in the big easy. The featured musicians are all outstanding, and even those genres that I'm not typically crazy about were well presented and flawlessly performed.

For me, the greatest distraction and failing of the movie is incredibly poor sound editing. Early on in the movie, different characters are trying to talk over background music, but the background music drowns them out. Hoping it was a single anomaly, I was very disappointed when shortly before the section on Katrina, the background noise absolutely drowned out all of the speakers. I'm just not sure how that could happen in a movie that is so highly regarded and rated.

Where to begin? An enviable cast, but poorly written, poorly directed and poorly produced. One of the very worst aspects was what might have otherwise been a good soundtrack. In this case, however, it just made no sense. Not connected in anyway with the characters, plot, or setting. Each plot twist seemed terribly contrived and poorly executed. And I typically love these actors.