Under the covers for a double life. (The Departed (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	The Departed (DVD)
Date:	10.02.07 (317 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Just superb in every way

Disadvantages: Damon a bit wooden...

Headline news: America remakes a foreign film and does an immaculate job on it! Yes I know it is a big shock, even more so when the original was a stunning film in its own right, spawning two sequels in its native country. The Departed, for those of you that don’t know, is based on the Asian film series ‘Infernal Affairs’

When I heard that the Americans were going to remake ‘Infernal Affairs’ I have to admit that I wondered why they were bothering and how they were going to screw it up completely. Discovering that Scorcese was going to direct was a big plus and took some of those worries away, but still I love the original and couldn’t get passed the idea that this was going to be a travesty (though not as much as I still expect the American remake of ‘Old Boy’ to be!)

Still with the addition of a cast to make a movie going fan drool, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin & Ray Winstone amongst them, you start to assume that the script must be pretty damn good to have attracted them all. You cannot attract that much talent easily so as news started to come out about it I got my hopes up enough to expect this to be a good film.

The basis of the film is that of two police officers in Boston. One, Colin Sulivan (Matt Damon), is a state police officer who is also in the pay of Costello (Jack Nicholson), the local gang boss, as an undercover informant. The second, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), is kicked out of the Police academy but is recruited by Queenan (Sheen) and Dignam (Wahlberg) to become an undercover officer to infiltrate Costello’s gang.

We follow the two of them in their double lives until both their bosses discover there is an informant in their midst and instruct their own inside man to find out who their opposite number.

The Departed is an absolutely stunning film, it is near impossible to fault in any way at all. Everything is just as good as it could be… well maybe Nicholson overacts a little bit but who cares when the film overall is so good.

The script is complex, twisting and turning in almost every other scene but done in such a way that it never gets really confusing and that it is the characters that drive the story, not the reverse. It is down to the excellent direction (though would we expect anything less from Scorcese?) that it never becomes a case of trying to work out who is who and what exactly is going on.

Still a great story and direction cannot make smash hit film by themselves, there has to be some star performances as well. The Departed is fortunate to have a couple of them. Nicholson as Costello dominates every scene he is in. He flits between sanity and madness as he shows crazy, manic style to perfection. He runs his gang with a mixture of astute mind and iron fist; you can never be quite sure how he will react to any given situation.

The big shock for me though was Wahlberg, he plays a foul mouthed cop who doesn’t trust anyone in the state police and lets them know what he thinks of them every time he has to deal with them by launching into a tirade of abuse. This could have been to much to watch but somehow he makes it work and a character you would probably normally hate you actually find yourself liking.

Dicaprio is good, showing unexpected ability I never thought he had but it has to be said that Damon is a bit bland and never really comes across as being affected by the pressure he must be under. Still that is just being picky, the film overall is just superb. It will be in my top 10 of 2006 should I ever try working it out. The best recommendation I can give it is that I actually saw it twice and I never do that. There is always something new to watch rather than seeing one I have already seen so to go and see a film twice on the cinema screen shows how much I loved this movie. The fact that I loved it as much the second time around is the mark of a film that deserves to be recognised as one of the best.

The Departed, a film with a great cast, great story, superb director and what more can you ask for in a film?

Summary: One of the best films of 2006