Great opening, slow middle and a poor ending

Rating: 5/10 (29 August 2007)

After watching 'Infernal Affairs' I thought to myself 'Why are the Americans making a remake of such a gem?' There was no need. (especially after many TERRIBLE US remakes of Eastern movies) Then I heard that Martin Scorsese was at the helm. I thought 'there is hope'. When it comes down to the crunch, it's the weakest crime drama from Marty (compared to GoodFellas, Casino and even his breakthrough Mean Streets), as well as being heavily inferior to the neatly-written, slick Hong Kong original.
When going to see this with a few of my buddies, I was expecting a great film from all the reviews it had received. It had started out great, the use of home footage of Boston riots and great dialogue from legend Jack Nicholson. I thought: maybe this is different from the Hong Kong movie, with excellent use of the song 'Gimme Shelter' by The Rolling Stones. Nicholson plays Frank Costello (the ONLY real life character) an Irish mob boss who takes a young Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) under his wing. Years on Sullivan has become a Sgt in the Boston Police and an inside man for Costello. At the same time William Costigan (Di Caprio) enrolled in the State Police, since he's the nephew of a well-known gangster Jackie Costigan (who's already dead at the beginning) Senior Sgt Dignam (Wahlberg) and Captain Oliver Queenan (Martin Sheen) allow him to be a cop only if he were to be an undercover and infiltrate Costello's racket as a mole.
Over the year, or 2, Sullivan has worked up the ranks of the police and remains the inside man for Costello. But Costigan has endured a violent streak and mind games from Costello who questions his loyalty over numerous occasions. After a botched deal with Chinese mobsters on both sides of the badge, the moles are aware of each other's presence and must find out who is the 'rat' before they are caught.
When it comes to acting and the cast, it was terrific. Damon, Nicholson, Wahlberg and Di Caprio work their magic really well under Scorsese's astute direction. There is good support from Alec Baldwin as a foul-mouthed Police Captain, yet Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone are badly underused and their characters do not show the best of their abilities. The film begins on a different, gritty note from the original, but halfway through becomes an over-violent, quickly chopped rehash of Lau and Mak's masterpiece (like the writers just thought of something quick), which makes the screenplay seemed hacked up. The original trilogy did a great job of telling the story in 3 parts, exploring philosophical aspects as well as providing a backdrop for characters with a prequel. The Departed crams the Infernal Affairs Trilogy into one nearly-3-hours movie and becomes quite flabby and just tries too hard to be a cool crime thriller than the original.
Scorsese may have won the Oscar, but it's only after being snubbed over many occasions (makes me wonder WHY he never won for 'Raging Bull'), the Academy owed him an Award for his previous work which is a distinct piece of cinema history, so they had no choice but to Award 'The Departed'.
It is a reasonably fare crime thriller but not a classic. Check out the original.