"The Departed" Won't be Leaving Anytime Fast

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2007)

There were a couple complaints about this film's length during my screening, as clocking in at just over two and-a-half hours, it's a long movie. But there's a big difference between good long movies and bad long movies, which this is most certainly the former. The time flew by and not once did I find myself checking my watch. That being said it was also a fairly original idea, despite actually being a foreign remake. I think it's definitely safe to say that none of the important parts were lost in translation during the conversion. The finished product easily did justice to the original, especially considering how poorly the majority of Americanized releases have turned out lately.
As far as the acting as a whole was concerned, it was way above par. Jack Nicholson effortlessly played a great insane gangster, whose level of psychosis steadily increased. Alec Baldwin was hilarious as the dedicated but extremely sarcastic administrative officer. In fact I think it was the combination of these two characters that led to the perfect blend of comic relief that made it much easier for the conservative audience members to digest some of the harsher subject matter. The star turn was definitely put in by Leonardo DiCaprio, who displayed such naturally conflicted emotions and added so much inside depth to his role that at times it was even scary. Leo's both physical and various forms of mental anguish could be felt by all. I could really feel what he was going through the whole time without ever having those exact same experiences. This is one time where it'll be tough to ignore him at the Oscars again. Matt Damon gave a pretty flawless performance, but it also felt that he had the least interesting of all the characters despite having a lot of screen presence. Mark Wahlberg was surprisingly good in a different role than he's accustomed to, although he did drop his accent a couple times. Somewhat newcomer Vera Farmiga was passable, but not overly convincing and did seem to get clunky.
Overall the character development could've been better as the viewers just received a surface glance at them, but I wound up caring for most of the individuals regardless. The cinematography was excellent and contained some beautiful scenes of Boston along with some not so desirable shots of its seedy underground. The soundtrack was amazing and not just for the wonderful songs themselves. They really heightened the emotions by being blasted at some intense scenes as well. Needless to say this particularly grabbed my attention. Finally, the editing was tight which also helped with the quick pacing and the script was smoothly written into several layers but at the same time not being formulaic. Even if the scenario mainly dealt with translating the "Infernal Affairs" story for audiences over here.
This was a highly enjoyable flick and I fully recommend it on just about every level. In fact, my only real problem with it was that the ending felt rather contrived and was a letdown. It turned messy quickly and was going all over the place when the filmmakers were trying to tie everything together. Not too mention also highly improbable. Notwithstanding, if you can overlook that, then you'll be in for a real treat as usual from Martin Scorsese. This is without a doubt his best film so far this decade, and could quite possibly be right there under "Goodfellas". It's fairly ironic that the title is "The Departed", because I was so intrigued that I didn't want to leave.