Martin Scorsese films are long -- 138 minutes on average -- and they keep getting longer from decade to decade. But he is one of the premier American film directors, so he has earned the right. This one was 151 minutes, and I had to watch it in two parts. In fact, it was so long, I ended up watching four other films before watching the second part. Not that I wasn't into the story. It's just one of those films with a slow build, and I didn't feel any need to rush through it. I think that's a characteristic of a good film -- the feeling that you can just sit with it for a while in silence. You don't feel the need to finish quickly or check the time left over and over again. The story itself is classic: What's good? What's evil? Who can you trust? And why do you think and act as you do? All great questions. For the most part, I assume that everyone is out for themselves in this film. Maybe they're working for a greater cause, maybe they're not, a...
The Blog of Bret R. Fuller