My co-religionist Jeffrey Overstreet this time gets it sadly wrong:
"Scorsese fails to give proper attention to the most admirable character of the bunch - Martin Sheen as Oliver Queenan, the chief of the Boston Police Department and a Catholic who is the film's most upright and principled man. And yet, Queenan is all but ignored, lost in the chaos of bullets and double-crossings."The integrity of Sheen's character was, I submit, almost perfectly placed. The saturated corruption of church and state provided the necessary darkness that enabled the light of one decent Boston Catholic to emerge with dramatic chiaroscuro effect. To say Queenan was "lost in the bullets and double-crossings" is tantamount to saying that a beautiful painting is "lost in the wood and hardware" of its frame.