MOVIE REVIEWS
The Departed
Nathan Lim
By now, most of you have seen Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, a seedy crime thriller which was inspired by a Hong Kong classic, Infernal Affairs. The Departed grossed over $27 million over the weekend, which was a big surprise in Hollywood. The brilliant Italian-American filmmaker isn’t known for his big weekend openings. So the Scorsese hype from film critics has once again been ignited:
Scorsese’s movies usually have an operatic quality; this one reaches the heights of Shakespearean tragedy ~ Bob Bloom.
Scorsese’s answer to The Sopranos is a triumph, as violent, thrilling and worthy of multiple viewings… ~ Richard Horgan.
If this one doesn’t win Scorsese an Oscar, then there’s something seriously wrong with the Oscar ~ Tom Long.
Well, you get the idea. Critics applauded The Aviator and Gangs of New York, while I thought they were disappointments. Here, the legendary filmmaker was handed an enthralling plot; then he added some vintage Scorseses and created a wonderful crime picture.
In the opening scene, we hear the gruffly voice of Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) spewing racial epithets and his philosophies about the Boston underworld, over Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. He is a leader of an Irish Mafia. At a deli in a liquor store, Costello encounters a young and lost Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Costello raises the boy to become a high-ranking officer in the Special Investigative Unit (SIU). At the same time, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) has hopes to become a member of the Boston Police Department. Instead, his superiors in the department ask Costigan to eradicate his real identity, become a hardline criminal, and infiltrate into the Irish Mafia. The story then takes off like a fiery rocket that never stops. Sullivan, a member of the SIU, tries to abet the Costello gang, while Costigan, a Mafioso working for the police, attempts to thwart the mafia’s missions. As expected, the acting by the entire cast is fabulous.
A lot of the scenes and characters’ traits are straight out of Infernal Affairs. But I think the Scorsese’s version is a bit better. I love the grittiness, sleaziness, malevolence in The Departed. Scorsese’s version is also more emotionally gripping. In the Hong Kong version, the director uses grainy flashbacks of the characters when they die. That’s laughable. My only problem with the American version is the ending. Five guys get their brains blown up in a span of five minutes? Crime doesn’t pay according to Scorsese; the bad guys get theirs. But we all know that’s not the case in real life. So there’s a Buddhist saying that appears at the end of the Infernal Affairs that goes something this: He who is in continuous hell, never dies.
Is The Departed as good as Goodfellas? I say no. Goodfellas is one of my all-time favorites. The Departed is one of my favorites of the year.
