Review: The Departed
Wow, I'm not gone for two days and everyone's been posting like it's crack. HAPPY LATE VALENTINE'S! *hugs until asphyxiation* Don't listen to the hatehz, Lovefest Day is the greatest.
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The Departed
I haven't seen many Martin Scorsese films before this, just Taxi Driver, which I loved, so my expectations were high. It's an undercover cop movie about the Boston mob. After seeing Donnie Brasco some years ago (thanks Johnny Depp!), I went through a phase where I all I could read were books about the mob. That a group of people could forcefully wield that much power out in the open and get away with it for years was something I wanted to know all about. And it's still interesting to me now.
The opening line, spoken by the Bad Guy (Jack Nicholson), and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" track that accompanied it quickly hooked me from the beginning:
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me...twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency...If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it."
Then I understood what the big hoohah over Scorsese is about, and got ready to see a fearful, grimy, and ruthless flick. And boy did he deliver. There's a lot of big faces (Wahlberg, Damon, DiCaprio, Baldwin, etc.), but the film's story and its lines swallowed them whole, in a good way. Seeing DiCaprio's character trying not to fall apart and keep his sense of identity intact (as well as his nerves, since Jack Nicholson's paranoid mob boss character is shooting/torturing people left and right) while maintaining his cover as a violent thug was chillingly intense. What made it good compared to other cop/mob movies in recent history, imo, is the amount of room it gave to scenes with lots of dialogue. I've noticed old movies do this, and if I had to guess, I think flicks stopped having involved dialogue because people think it makes a movie too slow and it loses the audience's attention. That's right on the first count, but wrong on the second; we have plenty enough attention span, just not for crap stuff. And since its easier making crap that has to move fast in order to hold our interest instead of taking the time to make something good, we have less movies like The Departed coming through. Shame.
I've got no nitpicks about TD itself, because I was too busy biting my nails and gasping Omgthatcocksucker! the whole time. I really want to say one more thing, but it would be a spoiler, so that's all!
Favorite Lines:
There's a lot of smartass mouthing, so you'd be hard pressed to hear a line that wasn't bad or pick a favorite. Fantastic dialogue the whole time, really, so this is a sampling instead of favorites....
"There's guys you can hit and guys you can't hit. Now he's not a guy you can't hit, but he's pretty close to a guy you can't hit."
"Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know you're not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring, they think, "At least somebody can stand the son of a bitch." Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some cash, and your cock must work."
And anytime Mark Wahlberg opened his mouth. He yelled every one of his lines, it was LOLsome. XD
p.s. - On a final peevish note, as I left the theater, I noticed a couple brought their little girl with them. She looked about 6 or 7, and she did NOT look like she had a good time. What were they thinking? Little girls do not watch movies the same way adults do - I'm certain all she saw was a bunch of old men screaming at the top of their lungs at each other and blowing each other's brains out for two hours (there was blood, lots of it). She probably won't sleep for a week. Nice parenting.
Rating: Best written stuff I've seen in a long time, [9/10].
* * *
The Departed
I haven't seen many Martin Scorsese films before this, just Taxi Driver, which I loved, so my expectations were high. It's an undercover cop movie about the Boston mob. After seeing Donnie Brasco some years ago (thanks Johnny Depp!), I went through a phase where I all I could read were books about the mob. That a group of people could forcefully wield that much power out in the open and get away with it for years was something I wanted to know all about. And it's still interesting to me now.
The opening line, spoken by the Bad Guy (Jack Nicholson), and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" track that accompanied it quickly hooked me from the beginning:
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me...twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency...If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it."
Then I understood what the big hoohah over Scorsese is about, and got ready to see a fearful, grimy, and ruthless flick. And boy did he deliver. There's a lot of big faces (Wahlberg, Damon, DiCaprio, Baldwin, etc.), but the film's story and its lines swallowed them whole, in a good way. Seeing DiCaprio's character trying not to fall apart and keep his sense of identity intact (as well as his nerves, since Jack Nicholson's paranoid mob boss character is shooting/torturing people left and right) while maintaining his cover as a violent thug was chillingly intense. What made it good compared to other cop/mob movies in recent history, imo, is the amount of room it gave to scenes with lots of dialogue. I've noticed old movies do this, and if I had to guess, I think flicks stopped having involved dialogue because people think it makes a movie too slow and it loses the audience's attention. That's right on the first count, but wrong on the second; we have plenty enough attention span, just not for crap stuff. And since its easier making crap that has to move fast in order to hold our interest instead of taking the time to make something good, we have less movies like The Departed coming through. Shame.
I've got no nitpicks about TD itself, because I was too busy biting my nails and gasping Omgthatcocksucker! the whole time. I really want to say one more thing, but it would be a spoiler, so that's all!
Favorite Lines:
There's a lot of smartass mouthing, so you'd be hard pressed to hear a line that wasn't bad or pick a favorite. Fantastic dialogue the whole time, really, so this is a sampling instead of favorites....
"There's guys you can hit and guys you can't hit. Now he's not a guy you can't hit, but he's pretty close to a guy you can't hit."
"Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know you're not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring, they think, "At least somebody can stand the son of a bitch." Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some cash, and your cock must work."
And anytime Mark Wahlberg opened his mouth. He yelled every one of his lines, it was LOLsome. XD
p.s. - On a final peevish note, as I left the theater, I noticed a couple brought their little girl with them. She looked about 6 or 7, and she did NOT look like she had a good time. What were they thinking? Little girls do not watch movies the same way adults do - I'm certain all she saw was a bunch of old men screaming at the top of their lungs at each other and blowing each other's brains out for two hours (there was blood, lots of it). She probably won't sleep for a week. Nice parenting.
Rating: Best written stuff I've seen in a long time, [9/10].