The Departed
Review by Loc

Based on the Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs, The Departed transposes the gritty underworld drama to Boston. Here, we get a youngish Jack Nicholson providing an early voice-over, laying down the general foundation for his very existence. As a mob boss, you take what you need because if you wait for someone to hand it to you, you get someone like Jack smacking you upside the head and taking your candy. As a little kid, Matt Damon accepts a bag of groceries from the mob boss and next thing you know, he’s graduating the police academy. Coincidentally enough, Leonardo DiCaprio is graduating at the same time, but strangely enough, they never actually cross paths. Liken it to Chem 1A lecture and 400 students all together, good chance of not running into Leo.

Back to the story at hand: Matt with his early mob ties is a homegrown cop-on-the-take. Leo, on the other hand, is more intriguing. A cop whose family has sentenced him to a career of ephemeral suspicion, at least that’s what Martin Sheen and Marky Mark think. So, they tell him he should do the one thing that he’s already been destined to do, go deep cover, infiltrate the mob, and take it down from the inside. How deep? So deep that only two people even know he’s undercover, Martin and Marky.

Now, in the original, the cat-and-mouse game came off exquisitely well. Andy Lau looks like a clean-cut, older detective, Tony Leung is a scruffy gangsta. Their nuanced roles leave you engaged and intrigued. Is Andy really, totally evil as he is settling into a nice life as a cop. Is Tony Leung going to be able to get out of his deep inside job. Ah, so very cool, so very tense.

For The Departed, the story plays out similarly, but with very pretty young people. And while they both turn in nice performances, the level of intensity wavers. Generally, Matt Damon is really solid in his roles, and this is no exception. But really, that’s about all he is, solid, not spectacular. The moments of near misses, of Matt almost getting caught in a web lies, not too intense. Simple as it may sound, the character loses his edge because he’s so rock solid as a lying cop.

But Leo? Yeah, he’s pretty damn good. With his jagged stubbly face and chaotic stares, Leo is a caged tiger, ready to pounce on anyone who threatens his steak. Now, I don’t know why I came up with that analogy, so I’ll just let it go now. The problem with Leo’s character isn’t Leo, it’s the lack of character. For his role, Leo is in some compromising situations, but the real story lies in his tortured existence: how is he surviving the ordeal, how is he tumbling into the vortex of evil and managing to back out? Look, watching him pop a couple pills isn’t good enough. For once, a little more dialogue would actually be a good thing.

For Nicholson, Jack plays up his mob boss with vintage Jack-flare. He doesn’t overdo it, which is a nice bit of restraint on his part. But asking Jack to reign it in when he’s got heads to smack and smack to blow, well, you just can’t bottle him up forever.

Other notables in the star-studded cast: Martin Sheen, simple old-timer cop, good and solid. Alec Baldwin, funny, old-timer cop, good and solid. Marky Mark, he’s got the funniest lines thrown to him, and he’s a great little character, but he really becomes a little kid playing a big cop. When all his lines are quick one-liners, there’s not much there but comic relief. Oh well, he’s Marky Mark.

Overall, this movie felt super-long, like four hours long. And it was a bit unengaging, which is so disappointing as it has a pedigree cast and its based on an excellent movie. Now, after careful contemplation and reading the stellar reviews out there, maybe my reaction is from actually seeing the original flick. I knew the story, so even though I didn’t go into The Departed with huge expectations, maybe the twists and turns were a lot less twisty for me. And maybe those guys were just as nuanced as the originals, but I already saw the nuances, so I couldn’t tell. Whatever the case, for me, for this guy right here, The Departed ended up dragging and failing to reach the greatness it was destined to achieve. If there’s stretch that goes balls out and Scorsese does his own thing, it’s the climatic, unforgiving ending. Other than that, it’s a flat-lining remake of a Hong Kong crime thriller. Go figure. Out of 20 stolen microprocessors, The Departed manages to hustle 13 chips to evil Chinese mobsters. Go see the original, subtitled not dubbed.