I beg your pardon?

Rating: 4/10 (29 October 2006)

I am shocked at the number of reviews that exist that praise this film to no end, and that call it Scorsese's best film since "Goodfellas." "The Departed" is far from a bad film; it is, in fact, a decent one, but it is still very disappointing, and the only part of "Goodfellas" it resembles at all is that film's last segment, starting at 6:55 AM on May 11 of 1980, after which it loses track of everything that made it one of Scorsese's best film. The film consists primarily of extremely short takes sloppily edited together which are theoretically meant to jar the spectators, but in fact only prohibit the narrative from moving effectively. There is nothing theoretically wrong with short takes; Sergei Eisenstein made very powerful films with shorter Average Shot Lengths than "The Departed" ever dreamed of having, but his films were conceived as juxtapositions of shots, whereas in "The Departed," as in most modern films that use this technique, the shots only interrupt each other. Eisenstein's films were great, and revolutionary, because he used editing to create sequences of shots to develop his ideas; Scorsese's greatest films tend to have longer average shot lengths because he expresses his ideas in a single shot rather than a sequence of them. In "The Departed" he has not decided to express himself with sequences of shots rather than single shots, he has merely made the shots shorter and thus hindered the expression of his ideas in the film.
Moreover, there are serious narrative flaws in the film. Jack Nicholson gives an outstanding performance as a once great (if a little eccentric) mob boss who has become paranoid near the end of his life and becomes self-destructive. He is hilarious for much of the film, but at times, particularly near the end, he truly becomes terrifying. This is all quite good, but the film is not about him; it is about Billy and Colin. It perhaps would have been better to have made a completely separate film about Frank Costello, since he is given either too much or too little attention in "The Departed." The same could be said about Alec Baldwin's and Marky Mark's characters; they need either to be given more major roles that relate more directly to the thematic elements of the film, or to be removed entirely. At times, it seems as if Scorsese were so intent on having an Outstanding Ensemble Cast and in the process forgot about his main characters.
It would seem to me, from the film's mere plot, that a major idea with which "The Departed" could play is that Billy and Colin are mirror images of each other. The film should be an exploration with the nature of identity, and though it obviously would tie in most directly with these two characters, it should also apply more subtly to the other characters in the film. However, Colin (Matt Damon's character) does not come across as in interesting character suffering from inner conflict; he is simply a jerk. Before Marky Mark's character shoots him at the end, he says "okay." The line should be delivered with a sense of self- hatred that has developed after Colin's conscience begins to attack him for the damage that he has wreaked on all the people from both of his lives; instead, he sounds merely bored. Billy is significantly more interesting than Colin (though I give more credit to Leonardo DiCaprio than to the screenwriters for this), but could still use more work. Damon's performance does not stand out, DiCaprio's reminds us that he is perhaps the most talented actor of his generation in Hollywood, though the film, lamentably, does not make as much use of these talents as "The Aviator" did.
The film particularly seems to fall apart after Frank Costello dies. It would make sense for Colin to become indecisive and confused after such an event, since his mafia loyalties were to Frank alone, but it instead seems as if the screenwriters were the confused and indecisive ones. Moreover, having all the major characters (except Baldwin and Marky Mark) die was not the proper ending for the film; it seems dull, predictable, and superficial to the extent that, when Colin says "Okay" before getting shot, I could empathize with his boredom.