the deratted

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2007)

i would be lying if i said i understood this film the first time i saw it. and; i would be lying again if i said i understood it much better the second time around, although the message was clear from the beginning. i can only tell you this:
1)the score was familiar. Scorsese loves the stones. there were some great Irish tunes as well, and lots of the incomparable Patsy Cline, and the original music by Howard Shore was very good. 2) this was a dream ensemble cast. why Nicholson, Damon, and Di Caprio were overlooked is beyond me. Finally, some recognition for Mark Wahlberg, 3)the editing, particularly the sound editing, was phenomenal. kudos to the entire sound department. it reminded me of the work by the late great Akira Kurosawa, in RAN....well, maybe not quite THAT good, but good... 4) the production values were second to none. 5) the complexity of this screenplay, quite frankly, is brilliant.
Very much like last year's CRASH, but in a much much different way, Scorsese shows us that good and bad intertwine like the precision of a spider's web. After a while, i couldn't tell who was good and who was bad. Nobody was good. And a mass murderer could appreciate opera and the ironies of life. This was the point in the film. and it was relentless. The satisfaction of the last scene, when the awol Dignam (Wahlberg)shows himself, was perfection.
Even after having lauded this film for it's many areas of pure perfection, it doesn't mean that i particularly enjoyed it. But it was brilliant craft. This is finally Scorsese's year. Best Director is his, despite the very real argument that Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was better directed. If you haven't seen Infernal Affairs, i recommend you give it a watch.
Scum on any surface tends to collect in one mass over time. But life thrives, even in a cesspool.