The Departed
November 10th 2006 04:46
Blogging has been light this week. I am in one of those languorous moods when you pick a book and rustle the pages but not much happens.So,I cleared my table of all the books that I'd marked for reading and had half-read.They were weighing oppresively on me. Yep, to write a review here I pick up a book and read it from cover to cover. There were only two or there books which I had read much before I reviewed them here. I have a lot of backlog to cover, many books I had read already, wanted to review but couldn't. Probably, I''do start doing those.
That said, let me write something about a movie I have seen this week, The Departed. I like watching movies but am no movie junkie. Which is a way of saying that I have seen but one Martin Scorcese movie before (Casino) and wasn't much impressed by it.
The Departed has got some very good reviews and great feeback from the public. Is it good? Definitely not a masterpiece but is much better than I expected. It's entertaining, to a
degree, if not for an overstretched climax and a poor romantic angle.
The story, adapted from Hong Kong hit Internal Affairs, is about two policemen in Boston, Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan. Colin has all the right connections, the right credentials and the right demeanour. Billy hails from a family with multiple criminal convictions and has worked his way up with
nothing but a great determination to escape his family's shadow. At an interview for Boston State Police, Colin gets an easy welcome and quickly grows into
one of its star performers. Billy, on the other hand, is given a rotten treatment and is told he can't be a cop.
This class difference is constantly accentuated throughout and provides for a unifying theme of the movie which has two major tracks. Colin in
actuality is a spy erected in the police by the mobster called Frank Costello. Billy, on the hand, is made an undercover cop and sent to infiltrate
Costello's gang, which he does because of his family connections. The movie alternates between these two who have to spy on the people whom they work for and
foil each other's plans. As their jobs become harder and harder, they have to question themselves why they are there at all. Also, Colin's girlfriend is Billy's shrink, which provides for another unnecessary layer of dual contrast between these two.
As long as the movie glides on the opposite sides of the same intrigue, it is interesting. It is when this duality disappears and the two strands become one, the movie becomes slow and meandering and comes to a lackadaisical halt.
The Departed is planted in Boston, a place washed with the experience of the Irish immgirants. The problem though, is that the Irish angst depicted here looks dated and the class difference theme has become obsolescent. The fact that the movie would have looked stylish in 1970s doesn't help matters at all. I think why it garnered so many glowing reviews is because it is a reasonable thriller which satisfies the need for bullet-pumped, slang- driven excitement without offending the critic's sensibilties: the two leads are not "heroic" and the movie doesn't have a "happy" ending.
Jack Nicholson's Costello is suitably kooky. Supporting actors Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg, are on the mark. Matt Damon acts like he is reading to a dictaphone and vera Fermiga is probably the worst romantic lead I've ever seen.
But, there is one genuine surprise the movie offers: the performance of Leonardo Di Caprio who plays Billy Costigan. He's being portratyed as an able discipile of Mr.Scorceses but it is he who shoulders the movie, not the director. I hadn't expected that from Mr. Di Caprio nor had I expected that I, who is prone to take the stuff that happens on the screen without getting involved, would start to care for his Billy so much as to hope that he would come through the whole thing alive.
The Departed, dir: Martin Scorcese
That said, let me write something about a movie I have seen this week, The Departed. I like watching movies but am no movie junkie. Which is a way of saying that I have seen but one Martin Scorcese movie before (Casino) and wasn't much impressed by it.
The Departed has got some very good reviews and great feeback from the public. Is it good? Definitely not a masterpiece but is much better than I expected. It's entertaining, to a
degree, if not for an overstretched climax and a poor romantic angle.
The story, adapted from Hong Kong hit Internal Affairs, is about two policemen in Boston, Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan. Colin has all the right connections, the right credentials and the right demeanour. Billy hails from a family with multiple criminal convictions and has worked his way up with
nothing but a great determination to escape his family's shadow. At an interview for Boston State Police, Colin gets an easy welcome and quickly grows into
one of its star performers. Billy, on the other hand, is given a rotten treatment and is told he can't be a cop.
This class difference is constantly accentuated throughout and provides for a unifying theme of the movie which has two major tracks. Colin in
actuality is a spy erected in the police by the mobster called Frank Costello. Billy, on the hand, is made an undercover cop and sent to infiltrate
Costello's gang, which he does because of his family connections. The movie alternates between these two who have to spy on the people whom they work for and
foil each other's plans. As their jobs become harder and harder, they have to question themselves why they are there at all. Also, Colin's girlfriend is Billy's shrink, which provides for another unnecessary layer of dual contrast between these two.
As long as the movie glides on the opposite sides of the same intrigue, it is interesting. It is when this duality disappears and the two strands become one, the movie becomes slow and meandering and comes to a lackadaisical halt.
The Departed is planted in Boston, a place washed with the experience of the Irish immgirants. The problem though, is that the Irish angst depicted here looks dated and the class difference theme has become obsolescent. The fact that the movie would have looked stylish in 1970s doesn't help matters at all. I think why it garnered so many glowing reviews is because it is a reasonable thriller which satisfies the need for bullet-pumped, slang- driven excitement without offending the critic's sensibilties: the two leads are not "heroic" and the movie doesn't have a "happy" ending.
Jack Nicholson's Costello is suitably kooky. Supporting actors Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg, are on the mark. Matt Damon acts like he is reading to a dictaphone and vera Fermiga is probably the worst romantic lead I've ever seen.
Leonardo Di Caprio in The Departed
But, there is one genuine surprise the movie offers: the performance of Leonardo Di Caprio who plays Billy Costigan. He's being portratyed as an able discipile of Mr.Scorceses but it is he who shoulders the movie, not the director. I hadn't expected that from Mr. Di Caprio nor had I expected that I, who is prone to take the stuff that happens on the screen without getting involved, would start to care for his Billy so much as to hope that he would come through the whole thing alive.
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