Not Bad, But Not Great Either

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2007)

I have become less impressed with Scorsese over the years. His earlier movies had an authenticity to them which right now is sorely lacking. It seems he's become a lot like Travis Bickle in the sense that he reacts with more violence and sex the more disillusioned he gets with the world (watch Scorsese on Scorsese on disc 2 of The Departed to see what I mean). Which brings me to The Departed.
I had seen Infernal Affairs before The Departed and was naturally somewhat jaded. The plethora of American remakes of Asian movies has made me somewhat irritated as with each successive remake, the quality has decreased. The Departed is no exception. To make things simple, I'll make a list of problems with this movie.
1. Acting: I couldn't help but compare Martin Sheen to Anthony Wong. Wong conveyed confidence and power in his role whereas Sheen always looked like he'd be better off being an accountant in a side office somewhere. Sheen can play confident too, just watch The Dead Zone (of course he was a villain in that movie, that's beside the point). And that brings me to Walhberg. Forget that his character wasn't in Infernal Affairs. Ask yourself why his character even needed to be in the movie. He served no purpose except to show everyone that he was unable to utter a sentence without saying the f-word about 500 times. And he got an academy award nomination for that? It certainly was not that difficult of a part. In any event, his antagonism is, I believe, to make him seem like a drill sergeant but in the end it makes him seem more like fifth grade bully. The rest of the cast pretty much sleepwalks through their roles, each on one setting. DiCaprio and Damon don't give the audience a sense of their torn duty which was such a powerful element in Infernal Affairs. It was that inner conflict in IA that made the audience empathize with the main characters. In TD, there is no grey area (which is odd since Scorsese says on disc 2 that everything is grey), the cops are good, except for Damon, and the bad guys are bad except for DiCaprio. But enough on that, on to...
2. The Direction: Overall, relatively unspectacular even from a technical standpoint. At the very least, Scorsese usually works in some unique camera shots (extended steadycam mostly). Not this time. Also, I really wish Scorsese would stop putting music over almost every single scene (he really overkilled this in Casino). Fellini, of whom I'm not a particular fan, once said something to the effect that when the director uses music too much it means there is nothing interesting going on with the story. He didn't take into account that maybe the director was manipulating emotions, which is fine. But that's the thing. Scorsese's use of music doesn't fit what's going on on the screen. He's become obsessed with musical counterpoint which, ever since Goodfellas, he's overused so much that I no longer pay it any mind.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS (for both IA and TD)
3. The Ending: It almost comes across as a slapstick comedy with people getting shot in the head left and right. The real crime (no pun intended) was the killing of Damon's character. In IA, the fact that his character had to live a lie despite the fact that he tried to make things right was so much more powerful than the bland ending of TD. In IA, that character had to live with the knowledge that he was responsible for a good cop's death. Since it's already been established that he's been trying to be a better person, this makes it all the more potent. Damon's character is a robot set on "bad" and therefore there is no empathy for him at all.
In conclusion, TD is a decent movie, but nothing more. It's not a masterpiece. And if any parts of it are, it's because of the movie it's based on.