Movie: The Departed
General Info
Title:The Departed
Year: 2006
In Short
Two sides of the harsh life in Boston: one rookie cop going undercover to infiltrate the mob and one young mobster returning the favor by infiltrating BeanTown’s Finest. Their deception is directed by their superiors like pawns in a chess game (waxing metaphorically, me..). Both guys are trying to stay alive in a very hostile environment and at the same time finding out who’s the rat on the other side.
Extra Info: this is a remake of the super-incredible Mou Gaan Dou (Infernal Affairs) - a Hong Kong cinema classic!
Extra-extra info: my pal Harlem Ron, movie buff extraordinaire, will be adding his two cents to this little review.
The Movie
Visuals
Harlem Ron
Meh.. Too heavy on the symbolism, for example: the office scene with Matt Damon where he senses his time has finally come; just not working.
frenchy!
Great shot of a great city, Boston brings back memories! Nothing special, visually sound work. Lighting in the opening scene was classic.
Plot
Harlem Ron
Way too convoluted, Keep It Simple, Stupid! The writer and the director (the ever enigmatic Martin Scorsese) deliberately chose to skip the original script and tried to add their own sensibilities to the storyline. But this was a not very satisfactory, quite a lot of missed opportunities and the story got worse as it went on and on..
frenchy!
Well, for me from the start I couldn’t separate the original story from this movie experience: I kept comparing it over and over during the first half of the flick. I lowered my expectations for the second half and behold, I was less disappointed..
Cast
Harlem Ron
Jack Nicholson’s opening scene: man! He still is the one and only scene stealer. Leonardo DiCaprio’s on top of his game. Matt Damon’s a big nobody in this film.
frenchy!
I was again impressed by DiCaprio: still laughed my ass off when he drowned in Titanic, but the last coupla movies he’s been doing some great acting. Nicholson got on my nerves after a while: his over the top performance isn’t going anywhere, acting like nobody ever saw Pacino’s Scarface. Matt Damon? Ehm.. Next!
Conclusion
Harlem Ron
Quite some things bothered me about this movie. First off: the score. Scorsese’s movies almost always have a great score to accompany the great story (GoodFellas for example), but now it was incredibly incoherent. This movie has to be compared with the original flick and the remake falls short of the epic feel you get from the Hong Kong version. And that final scene, with the rat? Why?!?
Seems to me that Scorsese’s in a slump these last couple of movies. The Departed scores 2/5 as a remake (changed the whole feeling of the movie) and a 3/5 on its own strength.
frenchy!
Well, Harlem Ron was more positive than me during the first half of the movie and more disappointed by the second half than yours truly. I was kinda appalled at the way some stuff was handled like the elevator scene at the end of the story: why add to the body count in that scene? Why?!? I really wondered how people would rate this flick without ever seeing the original. A friend of mine, MeekeMar, liked it and thought it was entertaining. I remember some people leaving the theatre discussing about the ending: I’m not sure if everybody liked the story.
As a remake: 1/5. As a movie on its own: 2/5
Rating: 
Oscar Winner?
