Fair enough, but I meant more that it should make the resolution of the movie a little less surprising when looking at it afterwards.
True i agree, my only complaint is that The chick is going to have one of their children, i think it would have been a neater ending if their was also a child who would represent the irish mob guys as well, kind of saying the cycle will continue thingy.
Actually, there's a really subtle mirroring here:
The bad guys are impotent, the good guys are not. Nicholson's character couldn't father a child, and his substitute couldn't either, whereas both Sheen and DeCaprio manage to father the next generation. Since DeCaprio's family and his attachment to them is brought up a lot more, it could be argued that family is the ultimate force for decency in this world, and that the genuinely evil guys are deprived of proper ones. After all, Damon's wife essentially chooses DeCaprio over him.
I thought Sheen's was one of the best characters, immediately warm and fatherly without pandering. This, to me, was one of the best-casted movies I've ever seen. Wahlberg was more hilarious than hateful to me.
He had his moment, like when they were at his house and stuff. But as a son of a cop this can be a personal complaint, totally subjective. Sheen was a pretty ineffectual leader and cop. Wahlberg was an ineffectual HUMAN but seemed to be fairly intelligent as an officer. Which brings up one i forgot. Alec baldwin, clearly was playing a drug addict or something, couldnt stand him either due to his utter utter failure as an intelligent cop. those i realize are more subjective. Dont get me wrong i really liked this movie a lot.
I didn't see any reason to think Baldwin was playing anything worse than a bit of a cowboy, but yes, the cops were on the whole pretty ineffectual. Whether this was just to allow the movie to be more symmetrical or a deliberate dig, I don't know, but I don't think it was an accident.