THE DEPARTED
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As Heard in the Film review by Clark Douglas: For years, I've used Martin Scorsese’s "Cape Fear" as my example of a remake that can be an imaginative and original improvement. Now he's given me a new example. "The Departed" is a sizzling piece of entertainment, the most exhilarating, fresh crime movie since Quentin Tarantino challenged Scorsese’s top dog status with "Pulp Fiction". As everyone surely knows by now, Scorsese has been snubbed by the Oscars time after time, losing out on the "Best Director" award to such first- time newcomers as Rob Marshall, Kevin Costner, and Robert Redford. After years of courting the Academy vote with rich period dramas like "The Age of Innocence", "Gangs of New York", and "The Aviator", Scorsese has seemingly thrown all dreams of glory aside and delivered the most purely enjoyable film of his career.
A remake of the decent Hong Kong thriller "Internal Affairs", Scorsese’s version is an improvement in all departments... sure, he's got a bigger budget and a big-name cast, but that by no means promises greater artistic success. Everything works like gangbusters here, every piece of the puzzle works perfectly. Scorsese moves the action from Hong Kong to Boston, giving everyone in the cast a chance to try and sound like a member of the Kennedy family. The concept is quite an intriguing one: the police are out to get mobster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), but like many powerful mobsters, he's a tough guy to pin anything on. Their plan is to plant a spy inside Costello's circle, and Billy Corrigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is their pick. He serves some jail time to make his fake tough-guy resume look convincing, and starts to weasel his way up the chain. Good plan, but the kicker is that Costello's got his own man (Matt Damon) planted within the police department, trained from childhood to be Costello's stooge. Unwittingly stuck is the middle of all of this is a local psychiatrist (Vera Farmiga), who just so happens to be Damon's girlfriend and DiCaprio's shrink. Things get devilishly complicated, but Scorsese’s assured (though quite energetic) direction never leaves the audience in any doubt as to who's who and what's happening.
The fact that the cast is filled with familiar faces helps out in that department. Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg play a two-man special police unit who have developed a good cop/bad cop routine they're both quite comfortable with. Sheen is all patience and understanding, while Wahlberg's fuse seems to be eternally lit. On the more crooked side of the street, the wonderful Ray Winstone adds another impeccable performance to his resume as Costello's right hand. Alec Baldwin has a solid turn as a police chief, and comedy star Anthony Anderson does a surprisingly good job in a dramatic role. Farmiga is excellent, I sincerely hope this film catapults her onto Hollywood's A-list... she's a fine actress who's been quietly been doing great work for several years now. Damon and DiCaprio serve as the movie's core, and both of them are doing some of their best work here. DiCaprio's scuzzy appearance and violent behavior contrasts remarkably with Damon's clean-cut, earnest, straightforward nature. It helps blur the line between who's good and who's bad, and at times, both men begin to lose themselves in a wave of confused morality. For most of the film, our feelings about each character tend to sway quite a lot, it's difficult at times to figure out where to place our compassion. Out-acting (or at least over-acting) everybody is Jack Nicholson, who is even more devilish here than when he actually played the devil in "The Witches of Eastwick". "I don't want to be a product of my environment," he declares, "I want my environment to be a product of me." Sometimes Jack turns into "JACK!", with wildly grand behavior, but it's all rooted in such ferocious intensity that his character is always believably frightening. Consider an early scene when he executes a woman on the beach. His only comment... "She fell funny".
Everything works here... Let's start with the glorious screenplay adaptation by William Monahan, who is able to borrow from the original film's wonderfully complicated plot, but adds his own flavor with terrific, memorable dialogue. Monahan could've easily gotten lost in a muddle mess of plotting, but his work is pristinely clear without being obvious. Scorsese’s long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker is one of the silent geniuses behind his films, chopping and cutting a masterpiece out of his material.
Scorsese is well-known for his song selection, and though there's slightly less tunes on hand than usual, his taste is as appropriately excellent as is it predictable (the Rolling Stone's "Gimme Shelter" appears for the third time in a Scorsese film). Two other songs that play a big role include Van Morrison's great cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and the bombastic "I'm Shipping up to Boston" by Dropkick Murphys. Meanwhile, Howard Shore contributes his fourth score to a Scorsese film (his previous three being for "After Hours", "Gangs of New York", and "The Aviator"), and it's a refreshing departure (no pun intended) from Shore's usual sound. It's dominated by a sexy guitar theme with a Latin flair to it, which seems a little odd given the story and setting, but it works terrifically. Some tender moments with a similar musical shade are also highlights. Interestingly, the score's only weak points are the few typical "thriller" cues towards the end, which are built around some thump-bump-bump electronics. Those moments aside, it's a very enjoyable score. New Line is planning a CD release for later on in the year, at the moment, it is available on iTunes.
Despite my endless raves, I wouldn't dream of calling "The Departed" Martin Scorsese’s greatest film. It's not quite up the same level of his finest films like "Taxi Driver" or "Goodfellas". But it is nonetheless a great film, deserving of being mentioned in the same breath as those films. It's also most assuredly the most fun I've ever had a Scorsese movie... there's some heavy themes, and a whole lot of death and violence, but Scorsese seems to be more interested in serving up a great two and a half hours of entertainment. He does it superbly. A must-see.
Track Listing:
New Line Records (2006)
Running Time: ## minutes ## seconds
Music composed, conducted and orchestrated by Howard Shore. Recorded and mixed by Lawrence Manchester. Edited by Tim Starnes. Score produced by Howard Shore.
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