2006 / 151 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

I’ve seen “The Departed” at least twice now (some of it three times) and I’m glad that I did not review it before now. On my initial viewing of Martin Scorsese’s latest opus, I thought it a brilliant masterpiece on a par with the director’s best work. Perhaps this was because 2006 was a fairly lean year, cinematically, and compared to most of the crap that I had sat through I was so blown away by such a competent piece of work. Seeing it again, however, in the comfort of my own home…I am confident of its competence but no longer so sure of its brilliance.

“The Departed” is a remake of an earlier film, a Hong Kong thriller cleverly entitled “Infernal Affairs”. Why Scorsese didn’t just stick with this title is beyond me. It’s certainly a cooler name than “The Departed” but that’s indicative of the difference between the two films. “Infernal Affairs” is a cool title for the sort of cool little action flick that Hong Kong seems to specialize in. “The Departed” is a somber title for a more somber film. Like other great Hong Kong action films (I cite primarily the pre-American work of John Woo), “Infernal Affairs” is a study of the duality of the cop and the killer. Both films are about a cop infiltrating the mob while, at the same time, a mob soldier is infiltrating the police department. Like the work of Woo, “Infernal Affairs” and “The Departed” are about men with guns and how, despite the agencies that both work for, there is very little difference between the two. A good cop and a good criminal are merely cogs in two separate machines. One is a machine for good, the other a machine for relative evil. Though “Infernal Affairs” and movies such as “The Killer” and “Hard Boiled” seem to argue that, despite the disparate goals of the police and the mob, a man with a gun is a man with a gun. A man with blood on his hands has the same problems and has to make the same sort of moral compromises no matter who ultimately pays him. (I’m sure there are many other kinds of films made in Hong Kong all the time, but the ones about the fine line between good and evil are the only ones that seem to end up in my DVD player.) Scorsese’s film is about the same moral quagmires. It mines the same emotional minefield as the earlier film. But though it is in English and the characters are more colorful and the dialogue is more amusing, “Infernal Affairs” is the more economical, streamlined, potent, meditative and shorter of the two.

The cop in this film is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The mob rat is played by Matt Damon. DiCaprio is earnest and somber and seems about ready to crack at any given moment. Damon seems much more gleeful. His character is a lot more fun to watch. Then again, playing the bad guy always seems more fun than playing the good guy. This is not to say that DiCaprio is bad. Far from it. I still argue that Leonardo is one of the finest actors of his generation. Then again, so is Damon, and both men are given ample opportunity to shine in “The Departed”. In fact, Scorsese gets magnificent performances from nearly every member of his cast. Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson, Ray Winstone and, most surprisingly, “Marky” Mark Wahlberg all do exceptional work here. It’s particularly nice to see Nicholson get the chance to be flat-out evil again. After all the romantic comedies and heartwarming dramas he’s done in the past few years it’s refreshing to see Jack snarl and play the devil again. I never love Jack more than when he’s in full-on El Diablo mode. His character is the biggest improvement between the Hong Kong film and Scorsese’s. I don’t remember much about the gang boss in “Infernal Affairs”, but he didn’t seem especially intimidating. Jack’s Frank Costello, on the other hand, is a menace that I may never forget.

The dialogue is clever and snappy in this film…perhaps a bit too snappy. Real people don’t talk with such punch and verve. But that’s all right. This is a movie. I don’t really need my movies to be heavy on reality. It would, however, be nice if there were a little less profanity. I know the characters in this film are, by and large, scum. But all of them seem to drop a lot of F-bombs, and without much impact. It would be nice, and a bit more realistic, if there were a couple of characters that didn’t feel the need to speak like longshoremen. But, then again, this is a Scorsese film.

Swearing aside, the only real problem with this film is that it doesn’t seem any greater than the sum of its parts. The story it tells is riveting. The characters are interesting. The suspense is so thick you can nearly cut it with a knife (there’s a single, nearly silent scene involving a cell phone that’s guaranteed to have your heart in your throat). But what does all of this really mean? What’s the larger theme here? Is it the fact that cops and killers really aren’t so different on the inside? That’s nice and all, but between Hong Kong cinema and the oeuvre of Michael Mann that theme has been done to death. A great deal of the film is masterfully edited and well acted (though the film does sag at a couple of points, it’s damn good but it doesn’t need to be two and a half hours long). But it never rises above masterful pulp. It never transcends the genre as the best of these films (Scorsese’s own “Goodfellas”, for example) often do. It’s a great crime thriller, but nothing more. And as far as crime thrillers go, this one hardly reinvents the genre. I applaud Scorsese for returning to the genre he seemingly does best, but I wish he would have brought something more to these proceedings. I wish he would have given us something we hadn’t seen before. Take 2005’s “Sin City”, for example. Say what you will about it (and I have) but at least it brings new wrinkles and clever twists to the crime genre. And the style in which “Sin City” was made was spectacular. “The Departed” is constructed exactly like every other Martin Scorsese film. He’s not showing us anything he hasn’t shown us before. Want to see the inner workings of a mob operation? We already got that from “Goodfellas”. Want to watch a man try bring down the devil and find himself befriending and actually liking the devil a little in the process? The same actor did the same thing for the same director in “Gangs of New York”. Do we get a soundtrack of cool old songs cut to some snappy editing? Of course, that’s Marty’s trademark. “Sin City” gains layers of meaning with each viewing. If anything, “The Departed” seems to lose layers the more you watch it.

It’s great entertainment, sure, but when a film is cobbled together by an artisan like Martin Scorsese, I generally expect a little more. I expected a full course dinner. What I got was a really good bag of Cheetos.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 25th, 2007 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.