(no subject)
Saw The Departed last night.
While, sadly, there weren't actually any falling rocks, nearly everyone did die. Man, that was... I dunno. It was fun to watch (the movie in general, not specifically the everyone dying parts), but I don't think I'd really care to see it again.
I was really hopeful that this would be "a Boston movie," and in the beginning it was. The movie starts with clips of the anti-busing/integration riots from the mid 1970s. (Even if you've never heard about the riots, you might have seen this Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during a riot in 1976.) So, interesting start, except then nothing in the movie had anything to do with the riots other than the tangental relationship of "badness of South Boston." So... why did the movie start with clips of riots? What was the point of that? At the beginning it seemed like the movie was actually going to delve a bit into the neighborhoods of Boston and various issues, but by the second half the movie could have been set anywhere. That was kind of disappointing, at least for me. I think one reason I really like Gangs of New York is that New York itself works as an integral part of the movie. The locations, the history are essential to the story and to a large extent are the story. In The Departed it's more like, "Look! We set a movie in Boston! Aaaand... we're moving on." No payoff. Unless you could the extended shot of the State House at the end. Yes, the State House is pretty, what's the point? Was there a point to that?
Another weirdly set up bit that had no real payoff was the backstories of Sullivan and Cartigan. I kept expecting it to matter, especially with Cartigan. In the beginning, in Queenan's office they really grill him about why he would want to be a cop when he comes from this minorly crimminal background on his dad's side and a nice upper-class life with his mom. It's kind of a key question and the movie doesn't answer it. Why does Queenan decide he's trustworthy? Why does Cartigan want to be a cop? When Costello starts talking about how he knew Cartigan Sr. and how he would have killed Costello to know his son was working for him I thought, there must be something here. But the backstory seemed to matter only in that it provided Cartigan an "in" to Costello's crew. Being an undercover cop like that seemed so horrible, though, that he must have had a good reason for doing it. That kind of needed more explanation. Sullivan's backstory was simple enough, I guess, but I kept hoping we'd learn more about him other than "a gangster bough him body and soul with a bag of groceries and a comic book." There also wasn't quite enough done with the character turn when he finds out that Costello was an FBI informant and then goes ahead and sets Costello up. That should have been a really huge moment. I just felt Sullivan could have been a much more interesting character. As he was, I wasn't all that interested in him.
The only thing set up at the beginning of the movie that had any real payoff was the description of what happens when you shoot someone in the head. That got a lot of payoff.
Some of the supporting characters are fairly well-drawn and interesting. Ray Winstone in particular is great as French, Costello's second in command. (I loved him in The Proposition where he played the opposite side of the law and... now I'm thinking about how that was a better movie. Anyway, the link goes to some generally non-spoilery comments.) French actually seemed more intimidating and generally scary than Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson was... Jack Nicholson. Scary Jack Nicholson, but still Jack Nicholson. Alec Baldwin was sweaty. There may have been more facets to his character, but that's all I remember. I did like Martin Sheen as Queenan, he was a good and interesting character and I felt sad when he went splat. I thought it was contrived that both Costigan and Sullivan were interested in the same woman. Mark Wahlberg got to do the super pissed off revenge killing at the end. That was neat.
The best parts of the movie are the interactions amongst the policemen and amongst the gangsters, there's some great dialogue and sense of cammraderie and tension.
Just a few other niggling problems:
What ever happened to the microprocessors? Are we supposed to assume Costello turned them over to the FBI?
What the hell was in the envelope that Costigan gave the therapist/love interest? This is going to bug me. Movie, it's just not nice to have your hero hand a bulky envelope to his love interest say, "Open this if something happens to me," die, and then get never show what was in the envelope. He makes a whole big to-do about she's the only one he can trust and then... nada on the envelope. Sure, he sends her another envelope, but what was in the first one? Seriously going to bug me.
Also, special thanks to the Boston Globe review for its little ad informing me that the BBC version of Casanova staring David Tennant will be on Masterpiece Theater tonight. Because clearly my life is not complete until I've seen Doctor Who in eyeliner.
While, sadly, there weren't actually any falling rocks, nearly everyone did die. Man, that was... I dunno. It was fun to watch (the movie in general, not specifically the everyone dying parts), but I don't think I'd really care to see it again.
I was really hopeful that this would be "a Boston movie," and in the beginning it was. The movie starts with clips of the anti-busing/integration riots from the mid 1970s. (Even if you've never heard about the riots, you might have seen this Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during a riot in 1976.) So, interesting start, except then nothing in the movie had anything to do with the riots other than the tangental relationship of "badness of South Boston." So... why did the movie start with clips of riots? What was the point of that? At the beginning it seemed like the movie was actually going to delve a bit into the neighborhoods of Boston and various issues, but by the second half the movie could have been set anywhere. That was kind of disappointing, at least for me. I think one reason I really like Gangs of New York is that New York itself works as an integral part of the movie. The locations, the history are essential to the story and to a large extent are the story. In The Departed it's more like, "Look! We set a movie in Boston! Aaaand... we're moving on." No payoff. Unless you could the extended shot of the State House at the end. Yes, the State House is pretty, what's the point? Was there a point to that?
Another weirdly set up bit that had no real payoff was the backstories of Sullivan and Cartigan. I kept expecting it to matter, especially with Cartigan. In the beginning, in Queenan's office they really grill him about why he would want to be a cop when he comes from this minorly crimminal background on his dad's side and a nice upper-class life with his mom. It's kind of a key question and the movie doesn't answer it. Why does Queenan decide he's trustworthy? Why does Cartigan want to be a cop? When Costello starts talking about how he knew Cartigan Sr. and how he would have killed Costello to know his son was working for him I thought, there must be something here. But the backstory seemed to matter only in that it provided Cartigan an "in" to Costello's crew. Being an undercover cop like that seemed so horrible, though, that he must have had a good reason for doing it. That kind of needed more explanation. Sullivan's backstory was simple enough, I guess, but I kept hoping we'd learn more about him other than "a gangster bough him body and soul with a bag of groceries and a comic book." There also wasn't quite enough done with the character turn when he finds out that Costello was an FBI informant and then goes ahead and sets Costello up. That should have been a really huge moment. I just felt Sullivan could have been a much more interesting character. As he was, I wasn't all that interested in him.
The only thing set up at the beginning of the movie that had any real payoff was the description of what happens when you shoot someone in the head. That got a lot of payoff.
Some of the supporting characters are fairly well-drawn and interesting. Ray Winstone in particular is great as French, Costello's second in command. (I loved him in The Proposition where he played the opposite side of the law and... now I'm thinking about how that was a better movie. Anyway, the link goes to some generally non-spoilery comments.) French actually seemed more intimidating and generally scary than Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson was... Jack Nicholson. Scary Jack Nicholson, but still Jack Nicholson. Alec Baldwin was sweaty. There may have been more facets to his character, but that's all I remember. I did like Martin Sheen as Queenan, he was a good and interesting character and I felt sad when he went splat. I thought it was contrived that both Costigan and Sullivan were interested in the same woman. Mark Wahlberg got to do the super pissed off revenge killing at the end. That was neat.
The best parts of the movie are the interactions amongst the policemen and amongst the gangsters, there's some great dialogue and sense of cammraderie and tension.
Just a few other niggling problems:
What ever happened to the microprocessors? Are we supposed to assume Costello turned them over to the FBI?
What the hell was in the envelope that Costigan gave the therapist/love interest? This is going to bug me. Movie, it's just not nice to have your hero hand a bulky envelope to his love interest say, "Open this if something happens to me," die, and then get never show what was in the envelope. He makes a whole big to-do about she's the only one he can trust and then... nada on the envelope. Sure, he sends her another envelope, but what was in the first one? Seriously going to bug me.
Also, special thanks to the Boston Globe review for its little ad informing me that the BBC version of Casanova staring David Tennant will be on Masterpiece Theater tonight. Because clearly my life is not complete until I've seen Doctor Who in eyeliner.