When did DeNiro start to suck?

I'm so perplexed, time for DeNiro Face!

I saw an interview recently with Bradley Cooper, who stars in the new movie, Limitless, with Robert DeNiro.  During Cooper's interview, they ran a clip of him, then a student at The Actor's Studio, in the audience for James Lipton's interview of DeNiro.  The clip shows Cooper asking DeNiro a question about his work in Awakenings. That's when it hit me:  DeNiro has been playing the same character his whole career, it's just a matter of whether or not Martin Scorsese was directing him (Coppola's work with him in Godfather II was obvisously epic, but it was also 1974). If Scorsese and DeNiro were together, it's genius.  But if they weren't?  Ouch.....think Rightous Kill. 

Heat is an exception.

Don't believe me? Read Tom Carson's article on DeNiro here. I respect him as a film critc.