A successful operation, but the patient died on the way to the ER!

Rating: 7/10 (11 December 2006)

"The Departed" - like most other Scorsese movies - focuses on hormone-troubled males who hardly ever learn to grow up, entangled in an unforgiving society, playing their little games until they hit earth. The mob movie master has delivered another solid piece, with all necessary ingredients, but the result's rather half-baked.
The whole Irish/Catholic setting introduction in the first few minutes, with a roaming, literally shadowy Jack Nicholson appears to be some kind of an odd mechanism, as it changes the focus and shifts the weight of the story towards him, a move he doesn't really deserve. It seems like today's moviegoer is inept at guessing the bigger picture of a story: Whereas it was intriguing to figure out who's who in "Infernal Affairs" as the movie progressed, here it's all laid out from the start: What an insult to an intelligent audience.
Therefore, the initial 10 minutes could've been left out entirely, but my guess is there were some contract ties interfering with the artistic concept, resulting in a beginning that serves but as one big show-off for key-player Nicholson. Speaking of cutting, the crude editing style took me by surprise: At various points throughout the movie, cuts are made in the middle of an action, especially the case with inserts, resulting in a sort of staccato-like viewing experience. In addition, the jump cut approach doesn't quite succeed: The various, random back-and-forth jumps within the storyline left me questioning their real purpose.
When it comes to the plot, Scorsese adapted most crucial elements 1:1 (even going as far as stealing shots), but the remake boasts way too many extended scenes, including an Italian mafia subplot and trying to disguise the fact that Scorsese simply worked from a foreign template, thus culminating in a total running time of a close-to-unbearable 150 minutes. Unfortunately, many important puzzle pieces and details are dropped: The police academy background is nearly left out and also the fact that the original mafia boss once served as an instructor in the police squad. Other critics have already pointed out that the subplot involving the police chief (Martin Sheen's character) and his mole (DiCaprio's role) is entirely missing, and to make "The Departed" even less convincing, DiCaprio's infiltration duty is reduced from an impressive 9 years (for Tony Leung in "Infernal Affairs") to a meager single year. Furthermore, I didn't particularly like the whole "swearing competition": For Scorsese, grown-up men are always ruled by their inherent animalistic nature, including excessive verbal and physical violence, but the amount of repetition in this picture distracts from what makes the actual script so fascinating - how and when the two snitches finally find out about one another. The dialogue is very poor for most part and the few instances where Nicholson is allowed to throw in some classic philosophy are rare. "The Departed" also changes the conversation by the two mob members outside the cafÃ© by a complete 180 degrees. Instead of unmasking undercover agents as people who "look at you", it's now the ones that "look away".
As for acting performances, I give an entertaining Mark Wahlberg the Number One spot (although his character doesn't exist in the original), closely followed by DiCaprio, who delivers a fine portrait of a troubled youth from South Boston that can't really cut his ties to his past. Nicholson does a memorable job at being displeased about life in general, as a fatalistic, old Irish mafia boss, although his decreasing physical agility and somnambulistic appearance makes me question his dedication for the movie. Sadly enough, Matt Damon does what he always does best in a movie he appears in: playing an unconvincing role. Not really being a character actor, equipped with an neverchanging haircut, stone-cold facial expressions, it feels to me as if he's never really emotionally present. His lacklustre involvement is a real letdown, and a definite loss for the picture. Compared to "Infernal Affairs", there's only one "big" female character, and even though Vera Farmiga manages to play a psychiatrist torn between the two sides of the same coin, the role demands way too much from her. I feel sorry that "The Departed" omits a second girlfriend from the original (Andy Lau's annoying female sidekick), which makes it incredibly difficult to portray two women in one. Scorsese adds more responsibility to Farmiga's role, but in the end, she suffers the same destiny like her Hong Kong counterparts: she's too weak, too unimportant in the big scheme of things. What the pregnancy's supposed to add to the storyline, I don't know.
Something quite distracting that I noticed were the constant background songs. Rarely does the film give you some quiet time, silence is a foreign word for Scorsese. As if the combination of hard-boiled, simplified dialogue and smashing action wasn't enough to please a younger audience, "The Departed" serves you song after song, randomly piling up a plethora of music tracks that don't really serve any purpose. On the contrary, they are a real issue. They're neither location background music, nor a true soundtrack.
To come to an end, I ask myself why the remake is almost an entire hour longer than the original. This movie is so artificially stretched and chewed out, hosts unnecessary lengthy scenes that don't really enhance the storyline or the movie overall. The original suspense is lost and makes way for a exhibition of overpaid actors. Two and a half hours for a tale that can be told in a much more concise and straightforward manner, as the four-year old Asian installment deservedly demonstrated.
I doubt that the change of East Coast scenery will Scorsese do any good for next year's Oscar race. I fear that an aging man of such lasting creativity and intelligence has lost the plot yet again, after an abysmal "Aviator", and that he'll end up just like Robert Altman did, with the possession of a statuette he won't really be able to cherish.