Doesn't live up to expectations

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2006)

After coming out of the cinema yesterday, having watched The Departed I was in the mindset that it was good, not as good as the original Infernal Affairs but almost. However, when I was tossing and turning in my bed last night unable to sleep I had a longer think about it.
The more I thought about it, the worse it seemed in comparison to the Hong Kong version. The problem that comes to mind with American remakes of Asian films seems to be that they are unable to leave anything to the imagination. The Departed last over 2 and a half hours which is over an hour longer than the original. Why? Primarily because they obviously didn't have any confidence in the audience to work anything out for themselves. (Understandable if they were thinking that most of the audience would be American i guess).
The other reason that it lasted for so much longer, is because they tried to cram bits of all three of the HK Infernal affairs films into one. As well as that they fiddled around with little buts of the plot and characters. My one main criticism being the portrayal of Tony Lau's character by Matt Damon. In the original Infernal affairs you were never certain whether he was good or bad, and there was always the feeling that he may turn good in the end. Matt Damons character always appeared bad which spoiled the atmosphere of the film.
I was trying to think if there was anything in The Departed that was better than Infernal Affairs. Its one slight saving grace is Jack Nicolson as the baddie, but hey everyone knows Jack Nicolson can play a bad guy!! And the music was kinda alright, what with Pink Floyd and all ~ but the music from the original was good too ...
I'm not trying to say that it wasn't a good film. And I'm sure if I hadn't seen IA first I would have liked it just as it was. But in comparison HK wins hands down in my opinion.
One last thing, I hear Scorcese has a reputation for violence, but was there really any need to have that much!