Inferior remake

Rating: 1/10 (6 October 2006)

Marty, Marty, Marty, what has become of you? People are saying this is going to win him Best Director? Oh, dear. Here's a spoiler-free list of some of the horribly clichéd or absurd things you can expect from this remake of Hong Kong film INFERNAL AFFAIRS.
This movie is all about psychological complexity. Which is why they have Matt Damon insulting a bunch of firemen near the beginning: "You're a bunch of homos!" he shouts. Leo's character is a down-on-his-luck kid with no family support network. It's so complex, you can't tell who the filmmakers want you to feel sympathy for.
Remember how Braveheart ended by implying that Mel Gibson may have fathered a child who would later be raised by the estranged wife of one of the bad guys? That happens.
At the bleakly dramatic climax, Mark Whalburg shows up wearing a hairnet. It looks ludicrous.
Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb crops up on the soundtrack - but at perhaps the most intimate, sincere moment in the movie, so that the lyrics wind up being completely out-of-context.
At one point Martin Sheen's character, in fear of his life, has to bluff his way into an elevator past some thugs, which he does by pretending to be an innocent passer-by. In the original the scene was set in an apartment block where people might be coming and going all day, so this very nearly works. Here, the scene is in an abandoned building, and his actions make no sense. At all.
A criminal mole in the police force decides to marry a psychiatrist who specializes in treating the police.
Matt Damon has just personally shot someone. While he's standing there, he takes a call from the guy's girlfriend. "He's been shot" Matt tells her. Oooookay.
You know the guy Matt shoots, who he was there specifically to shoot? Matt waits for the guy to shoot first before doing anything. Like in a bad Western.
Leo, the undercover cop, feeds Martin Sheen information by text messaging him whilst there are highly tense, alert criminals standing all around him. Don't worry, he leans behind a pillar so that no one notices. What a pity the original film didn't have a cool way of doing this that would have made more sense.
You get the idea. One thing I would never criticize is the acting, which is just fine across the board, unsurprisingly considering the expensive cast. Jack and Ray are always fun, especially together. The cinematography is boring but the dialogue is entertaining; it's just that the story is mangled and it takes a ridiculous amount of time for anything to happen. It's as if 'Marty' couldn't decide who he wanted the film to be about  Jack's character, the plot, Catholicism, or Boston itself  so he just put everything in and we end up waiting an extra hour for the same things to happen. I've avoided mentioning the absurd, hamfistedly 'manipulative' final shot, or something else about what happens to Leo, because I don't want to spoil the ending.
Watch the original instead, it's better in every way and 50 minutes shorter.