Divided Loyalties, Compromised Choices.

Rating: 8/10 (10 October 2006)

Plot Outline: A police plant tries to infiltrate a Boston gang-lord's crime empire, while the gang-lord's police mole tries to expose him.
Talk about the proverbial 'film of two halves'!!
Martin Scorsese's latest film "The Departed" is his loose re-working/ trans-location of the acclaimed Hong Kong thriller, "Infernal Affairs", which spawned two sequels, one of which was, effectively, a 'prequel'.
When I saw the earlier film on the festival circuit some three years ago, I was bowled over, even more than I had been by John Woo's kinetic thriller, "Hard-Boiled" from some 10 years earlier. What made "Infernal Affairs" so special, besides the technical excellence of the production and the fast-paced, high-octane action, was its emphasis on characterisations: particularly in what I regarded as the key, indeed the only players of any necessary substance: Tony Leung as the police plant, and Andy Lau, as the crime-lord's mole.
The problem with Martin Scorsese's 're-working', and, while I recognise that he is at liberty to expand the narrative to broaden the supporting characterisations, is the way he allows himself to be compromised by the star turns and the 'alternate agendas'.
So, and in what I refer to as the first 'half' we get too much of: Jack Nicholson, (whose HK equivalent was, at best, a two-dimensional peripheral character), revelling in an excessive quota of 'Jack-isms': think 'The Shining'; "Batman", etc, etc. Alec Baldwin, in his latest incarnation of his 'Glengarry Glenn Ross'/'The Cooler' hard-man, seemingly revelling in his ever-expanding waistline; Leonardo Di Caprio, who had to be given plenty of opportunity to emote, his 'Aviator' Oscar play having fallen short. while Ray Winstone gets to drop the Cockney hard-man stunt in favour of its Bostonian equivalent.
Then, just when I was about to doze off, having realised too late just why Martin Scorsese needed 140 minutes to tell his story, he cranked the gears up a few notches.
Matt Damon's gang-lord's police mole realises he's got to move fast before Di Caprio's good guy undercover cop brings his (Damon's) employer's empire crashing down and, in a daring move, orders a police tail on the head of the police undercover unit, thus hoping to flush out Di Caprio: the resultant 10 minutes or so of breakneck, white-knuckle tension, even if it does rely too much on the original and 'The French Connection' for inspiration, is almost worth the price of admission alone,culminating as it does in a tragic death which ultimately precipitates a breakneck pace of cross and double-cross.
This is where Scorsese really comes into his own, with the kind of frenetic, yet sure-paced action sequences not seen since the heyday of "Goodfellas". Pausing briefly to swiftly despatch Nicholson's crime-lord, (which couldn't have come too soon, in my opinion), he constantly keeps us guessing as to the next twist and turn of the tail, and which of the 'double agents' will eventually prevail, and at what cost.
A 'film of two halves', indeed, and while the second 'half', of perhaps 50 minutes or so, probably contains more cinematic merit than most Hollywood productions of at least the past 5 years, ultimately this has to be seen as a missed opportunity for Scorsese.
As with 'The Aviator', Scorsese seems these days to be compromised too much in his artistic 'vision', to such an extent that I don't believe that this is 100% the film he wanted to make. 'The Aviator' seemed to me partly an Oscar vehicle for Di Caprio's (admittedly fine) acting, and part Scorsese 'Citizen Kane' homage: granted it was, after all, a Di Caprio vehicle.
Here, once again, it appears to me that far too much screen time is devoted to 'Jack-isms', and more (unconvincing) brooding Di Caprio 'emoting'. As if, 'the Aviator' pitch having failed, they'd make sure of it this time. The trouble is, while Di Caprio is certainly a fine actor, who, I believe has yet to achieve his peak, more often than not he's trying too hard in this film in what is an underwritten role, lumbered with often puerile dialogue.
And, where acting is concerned, don't get me started on Alec Baldwin, (whose acting capabilities seem to decline in inverse proportion to his waistline), or to Mark Wahlberg's cardboard-cutout undercover sergeant 'character'. Matt Damon, who doesn't try too hard, almost reaches what for me was his peak of 'The Talented Mr Ripley' But it was good to see Ray Winstone doing a 'foreign' accent, for a change.
Once again, Scorsese's choice of music was impeccable: And I so loved his apt placement of Roy Buchanan's sublime, bluesy guitar rendition of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams".
Would that all of Scorsese's moves had been as sure.