Good, but very familiar story of cops and robbers

Rating: 7/10 (2 November 2006)

Remake of Infernal Affairs is not the second coming of the gangster film that some proclaimed it. It is a very good, if decidedly over long tale of cops battling robbers with moles on each side trying to remain hidden.
The plot is simple, a cop is sent undercover in the mob at the same time a crook works his way into the police force. Complicating matters is the fact that the bosses on both sides quickly realize that a rat is among and they begin the search to ferret out the mole.
The original Infernal Affairs is one of the better Hong Kong Films of the last ten years. Its a well told tale with some nice stylish twists. If the original has any flaws its that the film falls in love with itself in the second half and becomes a bit too showoffy. Thats not the case here, here the story has been refashioned and rethought into a gritty tale of Irish cops and robbers in Boston. Its different enough to discourage comparisons, which is a good thing in these days of shot for shot remakes.
Martin Scorsese has fashioned a really good film. The cast is mostly excellent, with only Jack Nicholson ruining things with an occasional lapse into stereotypical "Jackisms". Leonardo DiCaprio has at last arrived as an actor and turns in an excellent performance as the cop gone deep undercover. His performance is sure to garner an Oscar nomination.
I really liked this film but I didn't love it. The film carries a sense of having been down this road before, not because its a remake, as I said it different enough to rebuke comparison, rather its because it takes the gangster films of the past thirty years and compresses them together and has a very familiar feel. It reminded me of several other films about the Irish mobs, State of Grace in particular, so it didn't strike me as ground breaking the way The Godfather or Goodfellas did upon first seeing them.
My one real complaint with the film is that it takes too log to get where its going. Yes its tense and it keeps you on the edge of your seat but when it was over I felt as though I had been watching it for twice its length. A good movie should fly by and make you lose track of time. I was checking my watch through out much of the second half of this movie.
Definitely worth seeing, but I'm not sure you're going to love it, so much as you're going to like it.
7 out of 10.