Sad effigy of a Scorsese movie

Rating: Null/10 (14 August 2011)

I love all Scorsese movies (except maybe Kundun) and thus was stoked to see "The Departed". And then sorely disappointed. The movie feels as if Scorsese had made it after a suffering major stroke, as a mere shadow of himself. All the ingredients are there (including the Stones-laden soundtrack) but they don't gel. The movie seems hammy, over the top, vain and self-indulgent, implausible, and simply boring. Like small-time director meets over-sized budget. We follow the stories of two young cops (Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio) in a Boston dominated by the god-like Irish mobster Costello (Jack Nicholson); one cop infiltrates the gang, the other cop is on the mob's payroll and infiltrates the police. My first problem here was simply that the two cops are physically so similar that I had a hard time keeping them apart. Then: the script is always hammy, always implausible, never original or intriguing. For example, I didn't buy the scene where one student at a police academy tells another that his girlfriend won't, erm, fellate him until he passes. Crass, yes, supermasculine atmosphere, check, but how gay is it to tell the guy jogging next to you about your sexual regimen (or lack of it)? Throughout the movie men spout abuse at each other to a point that it seems more like SNL on Tourette than Scorsese. Maybe it's the erroneous vision of an old man about how young bucks interact these days. Even Nicholson as the mobster comes across not so much scary but more like an old queer. In one scene he walks through a restaurant after he has been "interrogating" young members of his gang ("One of them gave the wrong answer!", and he is covered in coagulated blood like a butcher at the end of a long day at the slaughterhouse. Lay it off Martin, I'm not buying it. And finally the movie is about an hour too long for the thin plot.
Another hole: the cop infiltrating the mob is stressed out and goes to see a police psychologist (even though his mission is so super-top-secret that only two men at the PD know about it). This sexy shrink happens to be the girlfriend of the other cop (the one who works for the mob). And although she's just moved in with Matt Damon, for Christ's sake, and although her patient is clearly on the edge and aggressive, she starts an affair with him. Despite this the movie makes her out to be morally impeccable to allow her to be morally incensed about the double-dealings of her boyfriend.
By the way, I haven't seen the original and don't care how it compares to it. "The Departed" could not do justice to the original and still be a good movie -- unfortunately, it isn't a good movie.