Man. Outside of the acting, just about every facet of this thing was incompetently done. Yes, certain sequences work *individually* (the robbery, for example), but they just don't congeal at all, and that's the result of poor directing and unfocused writing.

I can't think of a movie I've seen in recently that was more heavy-handed. Having Bush, Obama, and McCain narrate the movie was a major miscalculation. Mob movies have been used as a metaphor for the perversion of capitalism and the American Dream since practically the beginning of the genre - most of them, though don't smother you with it, beat you over the head with it, ram it down your throat, and, at the end, give you an explicit recap just to be completely sure you got it.

And how many more fucking times are we going to see scenes with close-ups of guns firing in ultra slow-motion while ironic pop/rock songs play and blood splatters all over the place (also in ultra slo-mo).

Just a big, disappointing misfire for me.

Also, on an unrelated note - is there a reason everyone is saying this is in New Orleans? They mentioned at least four Boston suburbs and McNairy was speaking in that awful Boston accent the whole time. I also thought the book was set in Boston. Just wondering...