East Hampton gadfly and get-around-guy Bill McCuddy: “My feeling about De Niro’s drawlin’ gaslightin’ was kind of the same as yours. A little bit of his evil goes a long way. I was thinking how cool it would have been if his complicity had been like Robert Downey Jr.‘s in Oppenbomber — i.e., we just don’t know for sure until the reveal. The film does a better job of that with Leo who is shown to be part of more than we’re initially told.
“But, but, but…I sat there having a great reasonably engrossing time for the first two hours, and when Jesse Plemmons finally shows up I’m thinking ‘Okay, now we’ve got a movie…all this backstory is gonna pay off big time!’ And no. A languidly-paced film came to a grinding halt. It needed to move and it stopped. Partly because the ‘BI’ (later to become FBI) gets stonewalled and ‘Kinged’ by the town DeNiro runs but c’mon, let’s get the bad guys.
“Oh and wait, instead of tying up subplots we’ve got some more for you! Some of the Feds are undercover! You’re gonna be so impressed. Yeah…no.
“Most baffling and annoying is Leo’s waffle act toward the end. Here’s the truth…no, I was lying…no, here’s the real truth. It just wastes time.
“By the way in Sag Harbor we had a three-quarter-full house last night for an 8 pm showing. Two walkouts when the ‘Prairie Home Companion’ ending started. They weren’t wrong. It was over.”