Tweet

EMAIL

PRINT

Comments (0)

Related articles and links |  1 of 4

You might be a cop. You might be an undercover agent. You might be a crime kingpin. Or a sexy psychiatrist. No matter who you are, it's like the Bob Dylan song says: "You gotta serve somebody."

In The Departed, Martin Scorsese's hyper-violent remake of the Hong Kong crime classic Infernal Affairs, everybody has secrets, agendas, and a willingness to pull the trigger. And underneath their carefully composed disguises, all of them are devoted to the service of somebody—either a criminal, a cop, the cause of justice, their family's honor, or their own selfish hearts.

In the background, we see the gleaming dome of a church—and it remains distant, glowing, and neglected. It raises the question: Is anyone here serving God?

As Scorsese explores the mean streets of South Boston, he finds the cops at war with an organized crime operation run by ruthless Irish-American thugs. And the farther he takes us into this conflict, the more we realize that both sides are thoroughly corrupt. Undercover operative Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is trying to get close to crime kingpin Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), but the closer he gets, the more he must involve himself in reprehensible deeds. Meanwhile, one of Costello's fellow conspirators, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) has crept up in the ranks of the Boston police to become a prominent investigator.

The Departed is a film of superior craftsmanship, with dialogue as jarring and relentless as the gunfire, cinematography that takes us on a tour of a shadowy underworld, editing that winds up the tension to almost unbearable levels, and some of the year's most compelling performances.

But the film falls short of greatness on several counts. First, Jack Nicholson's outrageous over-acting becomes a distraction. Second, the film's only prominent female character—a sophisticated psychiatrist named Madolyn (Vera Farmiga)—is implausibly reckless and unprofessional. And finally, Scorsese fails to give proper attention to the most admirable character of the bunch—Martin Sheen as Oliver Queenan, the chief of the Boston Police Department and a Catholic who is the film's most upright and principled man. And yet, Queenan is all but ignored, lost in the chaos of bullets and double-crossings.

It's a shame that Scorsese, in expanding on Infernal Affairs, is so much more interested in embellishing his characters' sordid behavior than he is in examining marks of virtue and principle. This may cause concern for anyone anticipating his next film—an adaptation of Shazuko Endo's Silence, that magnificent and harrowing novel about a Christian missionary whose faith is put to the test.

My full review is at Looking Closer.

Russ Breimeier (Christianity Today Movies) says, "The Departed … is one of those rare exceptions of a film that generally improves on the source material, despite falling short of it in other ways." He calls the film "an intelligent, briskly paced crime drama that's almost never dull in its 149 minutes. … [A]side from the offensive material, The Departed fires on all cylinders as one of the best crime dramas ever made—smart, suspenseful, and technically well made from every angle. Of course, it's nice that there's an alternative for those unwilling to look past the excesses of The Departed. I cannot deny that it's an extremely well executed flick, but for a less epic and vulgar film experience, yet equally satisfying version of the same story, stick with Infernal Affairs."

next page... |  1 of 4

October (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50