One-third as good as Donnie Brasco

Rating: 6/10 (3 November 2006)

I guess film critics and movie buffs are going to give four stars to any old Scorcese-directed gangster movie, huh? Even ones that don't deserve four stars, like "The Departed."
I must admit that it's not a bad film, by any means. The performances are mostly solid, the Boston setting is unique and interesting, and there are some genuinely suspenseful scenes. But, on the other hand, there are also plenty of scenes that feel either completely unbelievable, or totally flat, or a noxious combination of both.
The plot, which gets needlessly convoluted at times, involves a mob "mole" in the police department and his counterpart, a police "rat" in the mafia. Apparently, it's based on a Chinese film called "Internal Affairs," but I've never seen that movie so I can't make any valid comparisons.
Personally, I couldn't stop thinking about "Donnie Brasco," the similar Johnny Depp/Al Pacino movie about a rat in the mafia. That film contained genuine emotion, complex character relationships, realism... all qualities that are pretty much absent from "The Departed," which feels like an unrealistic Hollywood production all the way. The only apparent advantage that "The Departed" boasts is that it has a trendier director than "Donnie Brasco." But I think Scorcese pretty much drops the ball in this case and doesn't deserve to be automatically credited as a genius - just how cutesy and self-indulgent is the last shot of "The Departed," anyway?
Some people complain about Jack Nicholson's performance, but it didn't really bother me. His scenery-chewing is a nice change of pace from watching DiCaprio and Damon act all earnest and depressed all the time. (Incidentally, I also thought Mark Wahlberg's foul-mouthed cop was very funny and entertaining.) The real weak link in the acting chain is Vera Farminga as the love interest. She's supposedly a psychiatrist, but she gets so emotional and confrontational with her patients that she completely fails to come across as a professional. She's also a bit insipid and doesn't really have chemistry with DiCaprio or Damon.
My other major gripe with the film is that the editing is often choppy and strange. Scorcese doesn't linger long enough in most of the scenes - he simply dives into the middle of the action, and jumps out again as quickly as possible. This MTV-style editing doesn't really enable me to get immersed in a movie. And some of his choppy little scenes are downright bizarre and don't seem to fit in the movie (like the weird one where Nicholson goes to the opera.)
I suppose that modern films are so bad that critics freak out when a remotely competent movie like "The Departed" shows up in theaters. It's a welcome relief from movies about CGI animals and superheroes, sure. But is it really a masterpiece? A top 100 movie on IMDb? Hardly.