The Departed
I haven’t seen the Hong Kong original Infernal Affairs, and for that I do feel ashamed since I’ve had multiple opportunities to do so over the past month or so – last week, Channel 4 in the UK even screened all three IA movies over three nights. In any case, though I’m sure it’s a great movie, I doubt it could be any more than equal to Martin Scorsese’s remake, which I can confirm is a “real return to form” (yeh I hate phrases like that too, but in this case, all I can do is agree) for the director, who hadn’t exactly fallen so much as lost his way – his last, The Aviator, has definitely grown on me in repeat viewings (and since that linked review, incidentally), and I have to admit, the one that really let me down, Gangs of New York, I’ve still yet to watch a second time, so the jury is out. For the record, I was one of the very few (it seems) massive fans of Bringing Out the Dead, which preceded those, and which this doesn’t quite reach for me.
It’s a complicated story, and one of those movies that really leaves you the first time round reeling, “wtf did I just watch?” but, though I really panicked that I’d lost the plot within the first 2 minutes, Scorsese keeps it relatively easy to follow. The flow of this movie is mesmerising, and the one thing that will stay with me and even leads me to go so far as to say that for me, on this viewing at least, the movie is entirely editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s. It’s not often I find myself in awe of editing in a movie, not often at all, but this movie is cut so how I believe a movie should be cut it almost startled me at first and I think that’s why it took me a while to pick up the plot. I’m seriously in awe of it – so far it’s the Oscar I wanna see won that’ll have me cheering next year.
And then there’s the performances. No, wait, let’s start with the cast! There are more names here than you can shake a stick at, and while I understand the argument that most of them are just playing themselves, well, I’m just gonna ignore it. Sheen, Nicholson, Baldwin, Wahlberg, DiCaprio, Damon (yes, even the one who must be hated Damon! he actually has the look of Ray Liotta about him at times, tres, tres cool), this is a treat of actors. I’d been predicting Nicholson for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar while some had pushed him up to lead status. I don’t know what the official stand is yet, I guess it depends on the FYC campaigns or something, but I still think his is a supporting role. In any case, I’d rather DiCaprio finally won his Oscar, and to me his is definitely a leading role.
Most of the reviews I’ve read here and there have generally praised the movie but sort of whined about the ending. This I don’t understand. The ending was one of the best things about the movie to me (lol I just realised how that sounds but I can’t think how else to put it – if you think I didn’t love this movie ‘cos I said that then you must be skim reading) – I can’t say it shocked me or anything, but it was just one of those neat poetic wrap-ups of what is, as I said, a complicated story. It’s probably one of the neatest endings I’ve seen so far this year, and from what I’d read I was expecting something much much less satisfying.
It’ll take another viewing to really decide if this movie was as good as my first impression, but for now, I’m happy to have seen my first Best Picture nominee of the year (I hope).
January 30th, 2007 at 12:47 am
[...] The Departed [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 am
[...] I really wanted to like this more on a second (possibly third, the desire to give it a second chance felt familiar) viewing. The Departed was amazing and gets better each time I see it, The Aviator has definitely grown on me; but this remains ultimately a real bore to me. Though it’s as technically perfect, almost even mesmerising in places, as Scorsese’s other productions, in the end, the story is just nowhere near as big as the film, at least, that’s how it feels to me. It’s certainly overlong at 3 hours, that’s for certain, but this movie’s problems run deeper than its running time. The period look is nowhere near as believable as that of The Age of Innocence. Leonardo DiCaprio hadn’t yet quite hit his stride, I’d rather watch Daniel Day Lewis in just about anything, and Cameron Diaz is just way out of her depth. By far the most riveting moment in the whole movie is that final montage of the New York skyline to the U2 song, followed by the bold title card and end titles – it kind of leaves you feeling like you’ve seen a much better movie than it felt like for the duration. Quite clever really. Okay I’m honestly stumped for what to say about this movie, it really does little for me – and I don’t think the situation’s ever gonna improve, so I might as well make the effort now I would still like to check out the DVD with Scorsese’s commentary, that’s likely to be the only way I’d watch this again and we’ll review after that [...]
May 15th, 2007 at 2:25 am
[...] As with the ‘87 Man on Fire, I was initially surprised by how much this original resembled its remake (The Departed) not just in content but also in style. I even had the same panic I had on my first viewing of The Departed – in the first half, that I’d completely lost the plot – this even, again similar to the “Man on Fire” situation, when I pretty much already know the story, lol. As with Scorsese’s movie, though, it all falls neatly into pleasant focus by the end, with really only a few differences on the way. [...]
May 15th, 2007 at 10:28 am
[...] The Departed Martin Scorsese [...]