Watch Infernal Affairs

Rating: 6/10 (9 November 2006)

I was eager to see how the Americans would remake Infernal Affairs. Based on other American remakes of Asian films, however, my hopes were not high. Even so, I was hoping that I might be pleasantly surprised.
I was wrong. Almost everything about The Departed was a direct copy of Infernal Affairs. The plot, which although more drawn out, was pretty much identical. They even stole bits from the original script. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if they'd acknowledged and paid respect to their source, but they had said that this was not a remake of Infernal Affairs, rather, they merely took inspiration from the Hong Kong thriller. Furthermore, none of Martin Scorcese, Jack Nicholson or William Monahan (the screenwriter) had even seen the original. Is it laziness or arrogance? Knowing Hollywood, it's probably both.
The film, being a carbon copy of Infernal Affairs, adds pretty much nothing to the original film, but somehow manages to take away instead. The violence often moves to the forefront of the drama and subtracts from the character development. Furthermore, it appears that the ending to this is some kind of hybrid of the original and alternative ending to Infernal Affairs, which unfortunately, negates the whole point of the film.
The stupid love triangle involving Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Vera Farmiga is pointless and typical Hollywood nonsense that does not add to the tension like it was probably supposed to.
Admittedly, the acting on the whole is good. Jack Nicholson is outstanding as the mob boss (a marked improvement on the original, in fact). Matt Damon shines as a mob mole placed inside the police department. His character has also been changed slightly (one of the very few differences between this and the original) and Damon does well to make it work. Leonardo DiCaprio is competent, which is more than can be said about his usual performances, but seems miscast and is outclassed by Tony Leung in Infernal Affairs.
On its own, The Departed is not a bad film. Unfortunately, it was preceded by a much better version of the same story, upon which The Departed stubbornly refuses to acknowledge its dependence. All this leads me to summarise this film in three words: Watch Infernal Affairs.