it's really not that good

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2006)

First of all , I have to state that I haven't seen "Infernal Affairs", so no comparisons between the two movies are possible. Judging the movie on that basis I have to say that I cannot understand all these rave reviews. Most of all I think that M.S. has made far better films, this is not a great one.
Some points of criticism: Apart from the fact that the film is too long, that some of the characters are not well developed and some stupid- the police psychiatrist, for example (by the way: is there any film where these people are not depicted as insecure people or morons?), it is the way in which violence is depicted here. At the beginning of the movie with the first execution scenes M.S does it right, violence here is shown as an awful, gruesome thing. Later in the movie,with the killing of Nicholson and especially in the elevator scene it looks like part taken from an ego shooter game, part a joke. It doesn't work. And the swearing. Absolutely nothing against that usually, but it's too much and ends up being a joke and then boring. Or are policemen like that, are they generally -like the gangsters- neurotic-psychotic idiots? It's all overdone , I think , from Baldwin to Wahlberg. And I think it gets the wrong reactions from the audience. It's playing to a teen audience. Despite the interesting conflicts, there is no real depth in this movie, nothing is really touching. And , last but not least: Why have Wahlberg come out in the end and kill the Damon-character so that a kind of justice is restored? Was it like that in "Infernal Affairs"? Well, I will check it out to see if the original is better than this one.
I wish M.S. would do something like "The Aviator" or "Good Fellas" again.