The Departed

Rating: 7/10 (8 October 2006)

I have tried to within my power to show everyone the first Infernal Affairs before The Departed had come out.
First of all, I want The Departed to do good. I guess in the long run it does good for Hong Kong cinema. However, it physically hurts me to see the Hollywood machine eating and going to be taking credit for this film much like Quentin Tarantino did for presenting Hero. The film's title is "Quentin Tarantino presents Hero". The film, ultimately, is a remake, so how do you critique it? I guess the best way is try not to compare the two films and access how well this film works on its own. Of course that is impossible to do but I went in being as fair as I could to The Departed.
The film was really well made. The acting good; Jack Nicholson is insane but he got the part down and is very memorable in giving us another villain. He hasn't played one in a while. I had heard about the dildo story in the theater scene but I did not expect to see it. Leonardo Dicarprio was spot on but it seemed from the script he took a more conventional approach to playing an undercover agent (one who was intensely stressed, anxious and swearing). Tony Leung's performance in IA had a wider dynamic as you see more aspects of his character besides him on his job. Tony Leung has said himself he approached playing the role of Yan of being a very optimistic person as that is the only way (and a fresh way) he can imagine someone can get through being an undercover agent. That is not Dicarprio though. Matt Damon played his role subtly. Mark Walhberg's role as a chronically verbal abusing cop was pretty entertaining and seemed like he had fun playing a role like that. Something really worth mentioning is the editing; it is very scrambled and you jump quickly btw past and present but it all seems to work because it makes sense.
The following is what three points that I did not like about the film that makes the entire story weaker, which weakened the ending. So the following would contain spoilers. Do not read beyond this point if you haven't seen the film. Those who don't care, proceed. 1) The role or function of SP Wong in IA has been divided into three characters in this film. The importance of SP Wong in the original film was that he was the only one who know Yan's (Tony Leung's) identitiy. His death was crucial because of this. In this film, you have two character that know the identity of Leonardo Dicarprio's character. One dies falling off the roof, ala SP Wong, but the other survives and disappears till the end of the film. This weakens the protagonist's conflict. At the end, when Damon deletes DiCarprio's identity on the computer, there remains 2 characters (Anthony Anderson and Mark Wahlberg) who are still alive who know DiCarprio's true identity. 2) The two female interests in the first film is reduced to one female interest. The psychiatrist role dates the mob mole and has the cop mole as a patient. This does not harm the film, but deviates and changes the Matt Damon role majorly. In the original, Andy Lau's wife plays a role into his character wanting to be good and hence pushes him to kill the crime boss. Matt Damon's character is not tortured as Andy Lau's character was in the original IA. In TD, Matt Damon kills Jack Nicholson because he's been informed that Jack Nicholson has been exposing his identity as a mob mole to the FBI; which was a very weak reason for their final confrontation. Dicarprio's storyline is less significant but in IA having Kelly Chen had added another dimension to his Tony Leung's character. 3) They replace morse code with text messaging. Matt Damon hides his cellphone in his pocket and types cellphone messages. I do not know why they had to do this. I liked the finger tapping, it seems more feasible as it is more stealthy and in the IA sequels it remained as a motif for sanity/insanity. This change just seemed arbritary. But no biggie.
To conclude, I was really engaged by this film and I was in the presence of good film-making. I just think the changes hurt the ending to the film. Nonetheless, the film will entertain you.