and
INFERNAL AFFAIRS
***1/2 (out of ****)
(MOU GAAN DOU)
Starring Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, and Kelly Chen
Directed by Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak & written by Alex Chong and Siu Fai Mak
2002
101 min R
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Marky Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone, and Alec Baldwin
Directed by Martin Scorsese & written by William Monahan, from the screenplay �Infernal Affairs� by Siu Fai Mak and Felix Chong
2006
151 min R
The great accomplishment of �Infernal Affairs� is to take a premise that could so easily be preposterous and turn into a genuinely moving tragedy. There are three great scenes. The undercover cop hides in an alley to salute a passing cop funeral. He confesses to his shrink that he�s a cop and a look of open-faced joy crosses his face to have said so. And when he thinks it�s all over and sits down, worn, in the police station. All three scenes involve the great and dreamy Chinaman Tony Leung (�Hero,� �2046,� �Chungking Express�) in top form. Andy Lau (�House of Flying Daggers�) is his counterpoint.
�How many millions died so that Caesar could become Caesar?� says the villainous lead gangster. But he�s wrong if he thinks he�s Caesar. I thought for sure this was why Scorsese wanted to remake it � the idea of good men laying down their lives to give a sinner another chance is very much his cup of tea. (At least that�s what I thought before I saw �The Departed.�) Supernatural elements aside, sometimes little separates Buddhism and Catholicism.
Praise is being heaped on �The Departed� from many corners, for two reasons: first, the movie is a tremendous entertainment, and second, more cynically, a lot of people really don�t like it when artists try new things. They like Martin Scorsese being �that guy who makes contemporary urban dramas about men hitting each other.� And, yes, his �canonical four,� you could say, all fit this description (�Goodfellas,� �Taxi Driver,� �Raging Bull,� �Mean Streets�).
But �The Departed� is getting a lot of its praise from quarters that probably had mixed feelings about �The Last Temptation of Christ� and �The Age of Innocence� and certainly didn�t like �Gangs of New York� and �The Aviator.� How dare Scorsese get out of his box and complicate our understanding of him?! So, for all its violence, �The Departed� is a �safer� movie artistically for Scorsese than his previous two outings. While exciting and beautifully cut, �The Departed� also lacks the visual flair of �Gangs� and �Aviator.� �The Departed�s� poster is right � this movie is mostly about the scowling faces of men talking.
Still, like I said, �The Departed� is a lot of fun, and chiefly because (I won�t lie) of hearing guys swear at each other in Boston accents. I could listen to Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark trade flat-faced curse words all day. Players in �The Departed� never stop accusing each other of being �facking homos.� The movie is a crackling entertainment in that its plot is twisty and engaging and there are plenty of macabre laughs along the way.
It�s interesting how it and �Infernal Affairs� differ. �The Departed� trades the mythic abstract quality of �Infernal Affairs� � with its limited steel color palette, men in black suits, and clean skyscraper lines � for the gritty approach of �Mean Streets.� But what I was hoping most for Scorsese to explore was the moral ramifications of the undercover gangster gradually turning into a cop. But in the gritty, foul-mouthed, and self-serving universe of �The Departed� there�s no room for moral conversion. It�s every man for himself in a universe without order or ideology.
All the �gangster chic� in �The Departed� can get a little old, as these tough men mug and f-bomb to see who�s tougher, over and over. (I know some audiences can�t get enough of this, but part of what is so refreshing about �Miami Vice� is that, after one big dick scene, the interactions with the drug dealers is limited largely to figures and timetables). So, in a technical sense, I know �The Departed� is probably a better movie � some of the framing and pacing in �Infernal Affairs� is a bit clunky and chintzy, which is kind of inevitable in a movie with two directors, and �Infernal Affairs� is kind of a �male weepie� in how it treats its ironies and tragedies sometimes.
But �The Departed� lacks some of the original�s emotional heft. And I remember something Paul Schneider said on the �George Washington� commentary, which is that anyone can make a movie about how the world is bleak and doomed, but it takes more courage to make a movie hopeful, and that was the pleasant surprise amidst all the doom of �Infernal Affairs.� But my wife loved it, and any movie that ends with my dad saying to me �I don�t think your mother would have liked that� is certainly meaty fare for the fellas.
Finished Saturday, December 16th, 2006
Copyright � 2006 Friday & Saturday Night
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