Too much Nicholson is not a good thing

Rating: 6/10 (28 January 2007)

"The Departed" starts strong, a taut thriller that leaves you on the edge of the sit for about half his length. Midways, things start to go wrong. Actually, they start to go nowhere. Once we have firmly established who are the good guys and who the baddies, and also the fact that  allegedly  there is only a thin line in between, the movie gets stuck in a rut called the Jack Nicholson over the top performance.
It is regrettable to think that this could have been a truly great movie without Jack Nicholson. He is given possibly the longest screen time and during all of it, he just goes along doing his usual stuff, the mad grin, the lecherous wink, the foul language, etc Nicholson by the book. Nicholson and more Nicholson. We are not spared even a very choreographic final scene, so fake that even an amateur actor could have played it better.
It is a relief that Nicholson did not get nominated for this part. The movie is quite compelling when he is not on screen. Di Caprio is surprisingly good, playing vulnerable in a credible way and also Damon, playing creepy even better than in "Ripley". One really sides with Di Caprio, the lonely, unappreciated, unloved hero, hoping for a happy ending. Unfortunately, we know that in this sort of movies copious bloodshed and tragedy rule. Luckily, Wahlberg in a key role is around to provide some sort of satisfactory closure. Wahlberg almost disappeared from the screen after several good performances, which is a pity because he is gifted. It would have made the movie a lot more interesting if he and Martin Sheen had more time on screen, rather than the lamentable Nicholson.
On the whole, this is a good movie, but not a great one. For sure the script denotes some ignorance of police procedures. The whole investigative side requires massive doses of suspended disbelief. It seems rather bizarre that a police inspector is given the job of checking the background of all his fellow officers only because his boss likes his face, but without anybody checking his background or working with him. An undercover agent has license to kill and no duty to report criminal actions while actually taking part in them. An FBI informer, thanks to his status is free to continue his criminal career. Does it mean that if I talk to the Feds I can go around killing whomever I want? Finally, half hour could have easily been chopped off, perhaps by eliminating most Nicholson scenes, and the end is definitely muddled up, with Damon absurdly shown as being constantly free of suspicion. In other movies police officers get suspended for a lot less of what Damon gets away with in "The Departed".