October 29, 2006

While hard jargon may be able to describe The Departed in an interesting manner — a tough cop-gangster runaround flick played to the hit Chinese franchise Internal Affairs (a trilogy crammed into one Hollywood film produced under Brad Pitt’s label, Plan B) — I doubt it if I can sum up the film better than David Edelstein, film critic for The New York Magazine.

To quote Edelstein, the story “centers on two youngish deep-cover agents, a cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) posing as a mobster, and a mobster (Matt Damon) posing as a cop. The first surreptitiously alerts the police captain (Martin Sheen) that a deal is going down, then the second alerts the crime boss (Jack Nicholson) that the cops are on the way. Then the first alerts the captain that the mobsters know the cops are on the way, then the second alerts the crime boss that the cops know the mobsters know the cops are on the way. You can see how things might get tricky, particularly as each rat becomes aware that he has a rat-doppelganger on the opposite side and attempts to sniff him out”.

With drastic new-angle inserts, bewildering present-past-present time lapses and break-neck skirmishes popping up every two seconds, the slickly rapid film is credited to editor Thelma Schoonmaker, director Michael Scorsese and the wide-angled camerawork by Michael Bellhaus with its vigilant lighting design.

It is enlightening to see Scorsese being so unambiguously Mean Streets in The Departed. Aware of every moment, it still manages to make us stay glued to our screens with its grim morbidity, striking humour and tight pace. And Scorsese does all this while surfing to the beat of Rolling Stones (the film begins on the Stones’ Gimme Shelter), Van Morrison, The Beach Boys, John Lennon, an occasional Opera-induced wail and Roy Buchanan’s The Messiah Will Come Again.

The script is by Bill Monahan (Kingdom of Heaven) and the heavily-anchored dialogues express Bostonian-accented profanity. In Monahan’s script, the film is transfigured to Boston, where a shadow-clad Irish South Boston Mob boss, speaking in Sun Tzu wisdom, strolls in front of a well-lit backdrop. This is Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) and he’s about to buy an innocent soul at the price of grocery and a Wolverine comic book. Costello saunters through the film, both shocking and scary, chewing up the scenery in a trademark vulgar demeanor.

The boy whose soul Costello buys is Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). In his first few shots, Sullivan is taught to be aware and assertive in his police training. This training pays off constantly to his self-effacing, scheming, opportunist which Costello surrogate-fathers. Damon, however, superbly underplays Sullivan, constantly darting looks all over the scenery as his brain-cells untangle deadlocks.

DiCaprio isn’t as lucky playing the other cop, Billy Costigan. Bad-blood in his lineage, he is drafted as an infiltrator by the head of department, a remarkably soft-core Martin Sheen (playing Capt Queenan) and his hard-core second officer Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). Costigan is unknown to the head of task force, Ellerby (played by Alec Baldwin), a bald-faced smart aleck who counters Dignam’s high-count verbal abuse.

Walhberg steals the entire picture with his diatribe rants and rancid yet stable performance and DiCaprio perfects his reserved, snappy, standoffish persona. Stealing glances every other frame; afraid of his cover being blown; trading cell phone messages with cunning urgency. DiCaprio acts the emotional beacon while stranded in a dissimilar plain to Damon.

Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn solders a sustained performance as the significant love-interest (though I doubt love is the central focus for these characters) of first Sullivan and then Costigan: a shrink doctoring both traumatised cops and criminals. Here, Scorsese isn’t capitulated by his weighty credentials that produce expectations of Oscar-calling. We’re glad to have him back for a little while, because reports are that the director is working on a film about the life of Theodore Roosevelt with DiCaprio.

The Departed, hot off the Hollywood conveyor belt, is rated R, showcasing unruly flare-ups and hard-edged vocabulary from characters with pressurised psychological overtones.


Second opinion
Though cogent and involved as a director, Scorsese is not known for his clarity as a storyteller. But the visual excellence of his work leaves every cine-goer connected with his films, making him the genius he is today, an accolade he got through his gritty sense of style and respect for human drama. That earthy in-your-face mayhem was missing from his recent films, but after The Departed, it is a return to home turf for Martin Scorsese.

The film is filled with a well-paced, witty script that holds every single character in perfect place and squeezes out a tad more for the finale. Writer Bill Monahan’s comprehensive understanding of the Boston Irish mob (being a Boston Irish himself) hits every nail on the head with precise strokes, leaving audiences gasping from the full assault of the story.

A magnificent top notch all-male cast (except for Vera Farmiga) gives a savvy performance, making the movie brilliantly intense. Leo DiCaprio’s boyish persona put under the apprehension of being in the cat’s mouth and clean-cut Matt Damon as the conniving, ambitious officer are the polar opposites of each other and are executed with clear ambiance. Adding fuel to fire are Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg, with the latter two setting ablaze every shot with their presence.

The Departed is a film overflowing with back-stabbing loyalty and worth recommending for its meticulous macho-manliness. — Farheen Jawaid

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