The Departed is barely better than Mobsters with Christian Slater

Rating: 4/10 (18 February 2008)

The Departed is barely better than "Mobsters" with Christian Slater. For those of you who do not know what that is, it's a really mediocre/borderline crappy mafia movie from the 1990's.
I absolutely love both Goodfellas and Casino. They are both 10/10, no question. Knowing The Departed was made by the same guy and has a lot of good press, I went in with high expectations of that same standard from The Departed. But instead of getting a Goodfellas/Casino quality standard, The Departed instead has a "Mobsters with Christian Slater" (much, MUCH lower!) quality standard.
I will concede that The Departed beats Mobsters in terms of acting talent. But that's where it ends. On every other level, the two movies are almost equal. Terrible characters, terrible script, terrible dialogue, terrible story, and no reason to care about any of the above. The Departed and Mobsters are completely on par with each other in these ways. At least Mobsters is better in one way though; Mobsters features some memorable scenes that are hilarious in cheesy way, whereas The Departed does not (maybe 5 seconds of Jack's tool, but that's it).
I was honestly *shocked* that a Mobsters-quality movie has been made by Scorscese. What happened to his very high Goodfellas/Casino standards? Clearly, those standards have *departed* long before he made The Departed.
Jack in The Departed has to be the stupidest Don in the history of mafia movies. Even stupider than the Dons from Mobsters. He had umpteen opportunities to realize that Leo was a rat, starting well-before he even employed Leo into his mafia circle. For him to ignore all those very clear, umpteen warning signs and just let Leo do whatever Leo wants despite that not making any sense whatsoever, shows that he's far too stupid of a Don to be worth caring about (as is the script). Plus doing everything himself for no reason, which even other characters in the movie are smart enough to warn him not to be so stupid about, just adds to the ludicrousity that a powerful Don could be so darn stupid. Besides all that, most of his dialogue was almost completely incoherent. I enjoyed Jack's acting style which was great as usual, but the stupidity of the character's actions/inactions and terrible dialogue makes it so even Jack's great acting can't save the character from being worthless.
Here is a breakdown of the other "characters" in The Departed:
Matt & Leo - Generic pretty boys, with no character development at all, and bland generic dialogue throughout the whole movie. Leo did a very good acting job, but again, that does nothing to save the fact that his character had no reason to make him worth caring about. Is the reason to care about him "technically" supposed to be; to care about him because he's pretty? Because that's about the only thing that the character has going for him. Not a good reason to care about him, if that is the technical reason one is supposed to.
Shrink woman - Two-timing harlot. *Definitely* no reason to care about her at all. She adds nothing to the movie whatsoever. One of the most worthless main characters in the history of cinema.
Mark Wahlberg was excellent and funny, but way under-used. The only interesting character in the movie, and the only interesting *thing* in the movie at all. But he doesn't have nearly enough screen-time to elevate the movie beyond a "Mobsters with Christian Slater" level.
The Departed is *easily* the worst Scorscese movie ever made, and one of the worst movies of the millennium. Mobsters with Christian Slater is worth maybe 5/10. The Departed is worth 5.5/10 at the very most.
Putting a bunch of high-paid, pretty actors in a movie does *not* make the movie into a masterpiece simply because it has a bunch of high-paid, pretty actors in it. Although that *does* seem to be the popular belief about The Departed. That belief is wrong. And it sets a very bad precedent that the bar can be set as low as possible and still a movie will be seen as a "masterpiece" by default *only* because it has a bunch of high-paid, pretty actors in it.
The Departed is a mediocre/borderline crappy movie that is almost exactly as bad as Mobsters with Christian Slater is. Christian Slater and the makers of Mobsters got robbed. They deserve Oscars for their work in Mobsters every bit as much as anyone involved with "The Departed" does. That a shoddy movie like The Departed received so much critical and consumer acclaim is tragic.