Weak, bloated remake

Rating: 4/10 (28 October 2006)

A major disappointment for people hoping for a sharp, original take on a great film. Scorsese and company add nothing new except trivial subplots and extra characters to service their need for mass market digestibility. Do we really need an improbable romantic triangle involving the two male leads? The Mark Wahlberg character is a superfluous addition whose only purpose is the provide a tied-up-with-a-bow ending. The original is edgy and tense and contains a deeper moral sense of good versus evil. It also has real acting in it. Nicholson overplays every scene and, of course, has to do his crazy devil thing. In the original, Andy Lau actually achieves some depth as the icy, distant, morally vacant wolf in sheep's clothing. In "The Departed", the same character, played by Matt Damon, is portrayed as engaging and charming, making his evil completely inorganic. Tony Leung in the original delivers the best performance of anyone in either film. In the remake, DiCaprio, in the same role, is stiff and artificial, as is most of "The Departed". Too bad, if you saw the remake first, but check it out if you want to see tense, nervy, original film-making of the quality Scorsese used to make.