Amy's Robot

The Departed

One of the best things about Martin's Scorsese's new movie The Departed is that, in the months leading up to its release, we didn't have to hear again and again about how Scorsese had wanted to make this movie his whole life, it's a story that means everything to him, he labored for years on bringing his vision into reality, he went $50 million over budget, Leonardo DiCaprio is the greatest actor who has ever lived, blah dee blah.

With The Departed, it feels like Scorsese is just making a worthwhile movie, not trying to start his own religion. It's a big relief. As you probably know, it's a remake of Hong Kong movie about undercover cops and organized crime with the painfully translated title Infernal Affairs, which also spawned two sequels.

I haven't seen the original, but my guess is that some of my favorite elements of The Departed weren't taken from it, but were created specifically for the remake. Hong Kong is a pretty diverse place and all, but I doubt that Infernal Affairs features the creative, relentless, and unapologetic racism that was all over this remake. We're not talking about a few characters who throw the n-word around; this was across the board, consistent, technicolor racial epithets directed at basically everybody, by everybody. A lot of it is really funny.

The cast is all big names, and overall they did a good job. Matt Damon brings some of the same stony-faced cipher quality that was so good in The Bourne Identity, and paints a generous slather of Will Hunting over the surface. Leo The Great is unfortunately still into the self-conscious "acting" style that he started using around The Basketball Diaries. He furrows his brow, clenches his jaw, and looks tortured, but it's impossible to tell if anything's going on under the surface. Jack Nicholson as the bat-shit crazy crime lord (loosely based on real-life Whitey Bulger) is such an exuberant maniac that he often teeters right on the edge of self-parody. Vera Farmiga, who was awesome in Running Scared, has a disappointing role as the wimpy counselor/girlfriend (only major female character in the movie) who shows some backbone at the end.

But the real standouts for me were Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin. Every time these guys are on screen, you know it's going to be good. Mark Wahlberg puts about twice as much energy into his role as even old wildman Jack Nicholson does, and he is like a laser beam of perfect rage. Alec Baldwin continues to be incredibly funny, even when he doesn't seem like he's trying. He's on "30 Rock" which premieres tomorrow, too.

Get ready for another Oscars season of the Academy stomping on Scorsese's glasses and laughing when he cries.

categories: Movies
posted by amy at 1:01 PM | #