Review: The Departed
Sun, 12 Nov 2006.
The Depahhhhhrted. Not being from the US, I had no idea that Bostonians had that sort of accent. It grows on you though. I wish I could say ‘car’ with such gusto.
Blood Spray!
Anyway, it’s a good movie. A lot of violence is deliberately unglamourous. There’s an interesting contrast with the film’s title referencing “the grateful departed” and having corpses handled in such a disrespectful way.
Cheesy
There is a bit of cheese to this film though. Alec Baldwin is naturally cheesy with his grey streaks and his phoney smile. He plays Matt Damon’s superior officer and his character takes on the father role a little too readily. To me, it comes off as some old guy he really just needs a friend.
And then there is Mark Wahlberg who is deliberately antagonistic towards anyone he meets but worships at the altar of Martin Sheen. At times, I couldn’t help but wonder if that character was modelled after the lackey that followed around Capt. Harris in the Police Academy movies. His clean cut image and his potty mouth seemed to jar a little with me.
The Rats
Of course, the real focus of the movie is the identity crises in Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio. I can say that they both fit their roles very well. The film does a great job of illustrating the growth of these two characters with Jack Nicholson bouncing between the two of them at every opportunity.
Jack does an ok job of playing the mob boss, relying on his creepy ability to look so disgusting and disturbed. The scene in the porno theatre symbolised everything there was to love and hate in his character. But there were no classic deliveries from Jack in this movie, he felt like he was on auto-pilot for a lot of this.
7/10
It’s a great movie if you want to poke around at the theme of identity and how it is defined by our parents, our jobs and our actions. It’s a decent movie is you just want to see a lot of manly men swear a lot and participate in organised crime.
But those looking for an out-and-out action movie are going to be disappointed. This movie is more about thinking; the violence and the plot do not follow the cliches.
