The Departed (2006) Reviews

• Superb acting on top of brilliant storytelling

  General_Turgidson2006-10-02

  Now I know that 'The Departed' is based off of the Hong Kong movie 'WuJianDao', but Scorsese really grabs hold of a great story and brings it to the American Screen. My father grew up in Boston and when we walked out of the theater he couldn't stop talking about how authentic the environment and attitude was. Then there's the acting in which the lead actors (Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon) not only give stunningly entertaining performances, but you become engulfed in each one's perspective and dilemmas. The smaller roles that of (Baldwin, Walberg, Sheen) are supporting roles that remind me of Jesus Quintana from 'The Big Lebowski', by this I mean that their screen time is limited but they make lasting impressions that you cherish each and every scene they are in, Alec Baldwin especially. The story itself starts off with the basic intro of the players and the setting, but you'll find yourself slowing following each and every plot twist and rooting back and forth for the good guys and for the bad guys. If you're a Scorsese fan, which I am, I think you will appreciate this film. You can clearly see the Scorsese touch ranging from the cinematography and of course the music, it's great to hear "Gimme Shelter" again, but "Comfortably Numb" played in so well. It's another gangster flick from Scorsese, yet this one stands alone because feels so fresh and most would agree Scorsese does gangster films the best; so why not let him. Oscar worthy, the acting I certainly hope; this is DiCaprio's best role since 'The Aviator' which was his best role since 'Gangs of New York', am I seeing a pattern here. But my lasting impression wasn't concerned with the politics of the golden statue; my lasting impression was that I had sat through 2 and half hours of brilliant and especially entertaining storytelling. Thank you Mr. Scorsese.

• Lies, Betrayal, Sacrifice. What will you believe?

  Billy_Costigan2009-01-28

  First off, this is an American stylized remake of the Hong Kong hit, Infernal Affairs. I have to give credit to that, a good film. I have seen both Infernal Affairs and The Departed. I personally prefer The Departed, and I think because of one thing: Martin Scorsese. This is the master behind such greats as Taxi Diver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and he's at it again. The film has an all star cast with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin. The Direction was amazing. (maybe one of the reasons why he won the Oscar for it) I loved how some of the scenes were shot and set up. Especially regarding the Chinatown, and police interrogation scenes, among many others. The film is perfectly set up with intense, suspense scenes while adding in amounts humor at times. It works really well. The script is top notch. (Also Oscar winning) Realistic strong dialogue from scene to scene. Another thing I liked more in The Departed, as opposed to Infernal Affairs, was the acting. DiCaprio really seemed to earn a lot of respect from this role. Here, he takes on the tough guy persona so well. Sure it was known he was a good actor from his Oscar nominated performances in What's Eating Gilbert Grape and The Aviator, but he really takes it to another level here. I can't see anyone else as the character, he fits so perfectly with it. Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg, being Massachusetts natives, also give solid performances, with their natural accents. Nicholson works well in his role, as well. Everyone was extremely solid and everything seemed so real. Set in Boston, The Departed takes in all the Boston like atmosphere. Beautifully shot scenes of the Massachusetts Golden Dome State Capital building is just one part of the landscape. The Dropkick Murphys song "I'm Shipping up to Boston" really fits, great use of songs. Scorsese usually works music into his films really well. "Cops or Criminals. When you're facing a loaded gun what's the difference?" This quote really represents the film." Matt Damon plays a state officer in the Police, working for the crime boss of the area, Frank Costello (Nicholson). While Damon's character can be described as a "bad guy," he is really misunderstood. As a kid, he is sort of mentored into crime business by Costello while Costello becomes the father figure Damon's character never had. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a young guy, coming from a bad, crime ridden family. He's decides to become a police officer to get away from the crime life he's been surrounded by. Taking all this into account, Captain Queenen (Sheen) and Seargent Dignam (Wahlberg) decide to send DiCaprio's character undercover to find out more about the criminal underworld and Costello. With his family's crime record, he fit's perfectly into the situation. Now you have a highly ranked officer working for bad guy, and an undercover cop in the criminal underworld working for the State Police. From here it's an all out suspenseful thrill ride. Who's who? Who's working for who? Who can you trust? Paranoia threatens everyone. Lies. Betrayal. Sacrifice. How far will you take it? At the heart of this film is character development. We really feel for the characters. We feel like we know them. It's really amazing part of this story and film. Tremendous story telling here. This is one of the most entertaining and suspenseful crime/drama's I have seen in a while. While Infernal Affairs, came first, I think The Departed expands on it in so many ways. Really solid crime/drama. Check both out when you get a chance. It's really worth it. 9/10

• Martin Scorsese Hits the Streets Again!

  Alwood2006-10-03

  Please don't make negative comments like some of the aforementioned people have been doing if you haven't seen the film yet! I have seen it, at a press screening last week. Not only is it the best film of the year so far, it marks a return to form for Martin Scorsese, and ranks with the likes of GOODFELLAS as being one of the best in his canon of films. I'm a fan of the Hong Kong film, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, upon which this is based. While THE DEPARTED keeps the basic structure of the original, it is very much its own movie, so much so that the screenwriter, William Monahan, didn't even watch the original film while adapting its screenplay, thus enabling him to infuse the script with his, and Scorsese's, respective visions. All the actors are first-rate (yes, even Leo, for all you DiCaprio bashers out there), and turn in some of their best performances to date. THE DEPARTED is sure to garner a host of Oscar nods, if not wins, including (hopefully) Scorsese's long-overdue statuette for Best Director. Plus, with actors like Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin playing supporting roles, that says a lot about the quality of the film they signed up for! THE DEPARTED is tough stuff, not for the faint-of-heart. That said, it is a must-see for adult viewers who long for intelligent, gritty stories to grace our movie screens once again.

• Good but not as good as the original

  PhoCris2006-10-07

  Just came back from watching the movie so it's still fresh in my mind. Overall the movie was good but it could have been shorter. Good movie but nothing extraordinary, not a master-piece, not a classic. In this period filled with really bad movies it's a movie you have to watch. Some things are better than in the original (Infernal Affairs) like character development. It is especially true for DiCaprio's character (not really for other character). However the scene, when Wahlberg cites all of DiCaprio's family connection to the mob, takes too much time. They take a long time establishing how DiCaprio sells drugs with his cousin and finally get into Nicholson's gang. However after that it doesn't take long for Nicholson to give his total trust (in one year and a half to two years), which bothered me. This takes the first hour of the movie and i think it could have been cut by at least 20min. Some scenes have a lot more impact in Infernal Affairs than in The Departed. I'm gonna cite 3 scenes which are some of the most important in the story in my opinion: -The death of Wong/Queenan: in IA, Wong falls suddenly, lands on a taxi cab taking Yan by surprise. When Yan realizes Wong is dead you can feel the suffering Yan goes through by the loss of the only person who knows he's a cop but also/mainly by the loss of his friend. In The Departed we see Sheen falls in slow-mo until he hits the ground in a splash of blood. There's absolutely no connection, no friendship between DiCaprio and Sheen. We see DiCaprio almost on the verge of crying. But Why ? He's not his friend and there's still Wahlberg to prove he's a cop. -The death of Sam/Costello: In IA, Ming seems to show a desire to redeem himself and become a good man for his girlfriend. When he confronts Sam in the parking lot during the raid, he kills Sam to remove any evidence he's a mole and restart on a blank slate. In The Departed, although Damon slightly mentions starting anew in another city, when he kills Costello he does it just to cover his a-s-s. Never after he seems like he might become good. -The elevator and final scene: In IA, the meeting on the rooftop is between two men on each side of the law but sharing so much in common. You can even sense that Ming has some respect for Yan. There's no violence until what happens in the elevator. When Yan dies you can see Ming didn't want this to end like that. Yan's death is really emotional, all sounds are drawn off and only an opera piece is playing. When the second mole gets killed by Ming you only hear gunshots. In The Departed The final scenes are a mess. Damon and DiCaprio just hate each other's gut, the token black guy shows up, the 2nd mole shows up and everybody executes everybody. They just stand there to get shot. The scene seems really rushed. And when Damon open his door at the end of the movie to see Wahlberg waiting for him, it was the cherry on top of the cake. Everybody was cracking up. How many shots to the head do we need to see ? Was it really necessary to kill Damon and provide the audience with a happy ending ? Although The Departed is a good movie I felt a lot more satisfied with Infernal Affairs. They have very different feel to them. One is over-the-top street violence while the other one is more subdued, concise and nuanced. For those who says that The Departed is way more psychological than IA I would have to disagree. Infernal Affairs shows how two men struggle to know what defines if they're good or bad. Is it their actions or their allegiance to one side or the other of the law? In the end they're really similar. Yan tells the Psy he's a cop and lift that weight off his shoulder even if it's for just a second. Ming wants to redeem himself and prove his girlfriend but also himself that he's not that bad. Others before me have also commented on the buddhist notion of eternal hell so I won't talk about it :) The Departed lacked in that department. There's no connection between the two main characters except for the fact they are moles. They're almost portrayed as black and white. Especially Damon who doesn't seem to have any nuance. He's just bad till the end. The Departed 8/10 Infernal Affairs 9/10

• Scorsese's best since Goodfellas!

  MaxBorg892006-10-31

  He has made good musicals (New York, New York), surreal comedies (After Hours), satires (The King of Comedy) and biopics (The Aviator), but Martin Scorsese has never done better than the times he's dealt with life on the streets and gangsters. Mean Streets, Goodfellas and Casino (and, to some degree, Taxi Driver) are proof of that. It doesn't seem strange, then, that his finest film in over a decade (Goodfellas was released in 1990) sees him return to that familiar ground. With a few changes. The Departed, based on Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs (2002), is Scorsese's first gangster film not to feature Italian-American criminals. In fact, this film is set in Boston, where the Irish rule. One of these "godfathers" is Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), the man the State Police want the most. After years of investigation, they're finally getting close, thanks to undercover agent Billy Costigan (Leonardo Di Caprio). Because of his family (all Irish, all bad), becoming a member of Costello's crew isn't that difficult. Now all Costigan has to do is report to his superiors, Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), who will pass on the information to Ellerby's (Alec Baldwin) Special Investigations Unit. What they don't know is that Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), the most promising element of said unit, has been on Costello's payroll since he was 12. Soon enough, both cops and crooks become aware of the situation, beginning a manhunt that's gonna make the already fragile Billy even more nervous and Costello increasingly crazier. By moving from Hong Kong to Boston, Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan have made the first step in ensuring this film will be quite different from its Chinese inspiration. Another significant factor is the running time: a mere 97 minutes for Infernal Affairs, 150 for The Departed. This is due to new characters (Dignam and Costello's henchman Mr French, played by Ray Winstone, were missing in the original) and subplots, such as the one concerning Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), a psychiatrist who gets emotionally involved with both of the moles. But the most crucial difference is in the depiction of the underworld: whereas IA was stylish without being excessive, Scorsese's vision comprises very colorful language (some insults are so creative one might expect Joe Pesci to show up) and, of course, buckets of blood, the last part of the movie proving to be particularly shocking. None of the scenes ever reach the gross-out level of Casino's head-in-the-vice scene, but in pure Scorsese tradition it remains unflinchingly violent (also notable is the music, perfectly setting the mood, scene after scene, alongside Thelma Schoonmaker's impeccable editing). Amidst these brutal surroundings, the director handles a spot-on cast: Baldwin, Sheen and Wahlberg (the latter finally back on form) make good use of their little screen time, Damon fine-tunes the edgier side he showed in The Talented Mr Ripley and the Bourne movies, and Nicholson, playing the villain again at last, delivers another OTT but classy turn (original choice Robert De Niro would probably have played the part with more calm and subtlety). A special mention is needed for Di Caprio: working with Scorsese for the third consecutive time, he has finally found a way to shake off his Titanic image, thanks to a vulnerable, gripping (and arguably career-best) performance. With its clever plot, excellent acting and expert direction, The Departed is without doubt the year's best film so far. If this really is going to be his last gangster film (he has said so), as well as his last studio-endorsed picture, Scorsese can be proud, given the masterpiece he has given us. If only they gave him the Oscar in return...