Movie Review - The Departed

A remake of the 2002 HK supersmash, Infernal Affairs (Mou Gaan Dou/Wu Jian Dao) Martin Scorsese's The Departed is good....but not as good as the original in my opinion. Spoilers abound here - I tried to do the white-out edit but then half my review and analysis was just white.

Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is a cop in the Massachusetts State Police. A former altar boy, he's good at what he does, with a flawless record. He was also groomed from youth by leading Boston gangster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) to be his mole within the police force. On the other side is Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) who joins the force to atone for his petty criminal family. With his criminal links, task force leaders Queenan and Dignan (Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg, respectively) decide to send Costigan to work as a mole in the Boston Underworld, with the hopes of taking down Costello. Queenan and Dignan are the only two within the force who knows that Costigan is really a cop. Costello's gang steals some microprocessors and attempt to sell them to the Triads. Queenan's group attempts to use this as a point to bust Costello. Sullivan alerts Costello to the goings on. Costigan still manages to get the location of the sale to Queenan. Either way, the cops and the gangsters both realise that their groups have been infiltrated and it becomes a race to see who will squirrel out whom first.

Apart from the obvious differences, The Departed very closely follows Infernal Affairs - so much so that many of the memorable lines from the first one are replicated in the second. So, do I think it's the masterpiece some critics have been hailing it? Quite frankly, no. It's a good movie - well scripted, generally well acted, well shot, but there's something which holds it back. I've thought about this and did a bit of reading of other peoples' opinions before deciding what it was. The problem with The Departed is the pacing and the depiction of key scenes, and thematic exploration.

Infernal Affairs is a 90 minute movie. The Departed goes for 152 minutes. That speaks for itself. While the characters of Sullivan, Costigan and Costello are more fleshed out than they were in the HK version (that was done in the prequel Infernal Affairs II), the first hour where they analysed each character goes for too long, too slowly. The key scene where Dignan throws Costigan's background in his face before stating that as the exact reason as to why he's the perfect undercover candidate simply goes for so long that it loses its punch factor. The HK reason as to why Shaun Yue/Tony Leung goes undercover? Cos he's a smart guy.

It wasn't until the second half of the movie when the plot more closely followed Infernal Affairs and eveything became more tense did I begin to enjoy the movie more but even then, I couldn't help comparing the new depiction to the old. The extending of scenes to emphasise what's going on happens several times and each time, I couldn't help thinking that HK did it better. For example the Superintendent Wong dies after being thrown off a building. In the HK version, all you see is the person slamming into a car top. It's quick, loud, and unbelievably stunning to the audience and to the people on the crowded street who see it happen. In the US version, we see Queenan falling slowly (kinda like the Falling Man), before landing in a deserted alley at Costigan's feet. Sure, it's still shocking, but the true horror of the event I felt is lessened by drawing it out and changing the environment.

A number of the key themes that made Infernal Affairs much more than an ordinary good vs bad movie in my opinion are not as well emphasised in The Departed. In particular...

1) The Paternalistic relationship between the mains and loyalty. Sullivan's codename for Costello is Dad, but when the time comes, Sullivan disregards it to cover his ass. The equivalent characters of Costigan and Queenan in Infernal Affairs have a genuine personal concern for each other, as seen where SP Wong gives Yan a birthday present. The death of SP Wong is terrible for Yan, not just as the last person to know his real identity, but also the loss of a trusted friend and fatherfigure. This is is not done well in The Departed.

2) Dual Identities. Two opposites playing a role that is their exact opposite. Costigan/Yan and Sullivan/Ming have been working for years (10+) to establish how good they are at their respective jobs to the point that they begin to question who they really are. In comparison, while going on drug busts and solving a few murders suddenly qualifies Sullivan to head the internal investigation/anti-corruption group, it only takes Costigan A FEW MONTHS before Costello suddenly trusts him with his life. In the HK movie, it is not clear cut whether each character is fully *good* or *bad* and their internal struggle is obvious. In the US, while Costigan is clearly *good* but capable of *bad*, but he was breaking up after only a year compared to Yan's DECADE. Likewise, Ming turns on Sam because he wants to erase his past to become a good person, but Sullivan turns on Costello to cover his ass upon hearing that he's a long-time FBI informant and because he's tired of Costello's demands.

3)Redemption. Both Yan and Ming attempt to get themselves out of their personal hells. Yan is *good* and does well in undercover because he is good, but the longer he poses as *bad* the more he loses himself to *bad* and tries to redeem himself by taking down the biggest fish in the criminal world and thus releasing him from undercover work. Ming, a puppet of the big fish, realises that he is more than what he has been assigned, and tries to release himself by killing Sam and painting himself forever as a hero in the eyes of his colleagues. While the title of The Departed alludes to Purgatory, again, rarely do we see this as the motivation for a character's actions. Costigan never wanted to go undercover and tries to take down Costello so he can become a normal citizen (not even a cop). Sullivan does whatever Costello wants until he realises that he's not as indispensible as he thought.

Despite all my criticism, I'm not saying The Departed is a bad movie. It's not. All the performances are pretty top notch, Leonardo DiCaprio is particularly impressive, but I must say a word about Jack Nicholson. I can understand that once you reach a certain level within the criminal world and considering the moles you've planted in the police force, you probably wouldn't care about what you look like or how you act. That's understandable. But Jack Nicholson plays Costello as one of the most decrepitly dishevelled and crazy weird guys ever. While I can understand that his minions may fear him due to his erratic behaviour, considering the things he demands of said minions, I wouldn't really want to be putting my livelihood within his hands. I don't know if its the genius performance some people say...I mean, it's something but...I dunno. Especially compared to Eric Tsang's slimy, calculating, and intelligent Sam. One of the great scenes showcasing Sam is the drug bust/cross - when confirmed that the drugs he's buying are good, Sam's your chubby buffoon, but the instant he's realises there's a mole in his organisation he's coldly fearsome and you recognise how this guy could hold a criminal organisation.

The Departed is an good movie, but given the taut storyline and thematic complexity of the movie upon it was based, it suffers in comparison. I saw it with Poosy who really hated this movie and is of the opinion that if she saw the remake first, she would not see the original first because it was so unenjoyable for her. I'm the opposite. I think if I had not seen Infernal Affairs and enjoyed it so much, I probably would have liked The Departed more.

The Departed - 6.5-7/10, Infernal Affairs - 8/10

UPDATE - An update on this review is found here