less is more

Rating: 3/10 (23 October 2006)

I am an admirer of Mr. Scorsese's work as a filmmaker and cultural documentarian, so it was perhaps with heightened expectations destined to fall short of the mark that I went to see The Departed. Scorsese is an actor's director, and with a cast that includes the abundance of great players assembled for this project, it was hard to imagine how this film could be anything less than exceptional. In my view -- which is evidently a minority view -- it was quite a bit less, and I left the theater frustrated to have endured such a spectacular waste of talent and resources, signifying nothing -- or at least nothing we haven't previously seen from the director in Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and Gangs of New York, echoing a Jenny Holzer truism from the '70's,"killing is unavoidable, but nothing to be proud of."
Against the emerging vogue for "Indie" films, Scorsese has been one to embrace their antithesis, and he has the clout to summon the financial resources to do whatever he pleases, which has resulted in recent films that aspire to be large, almost as an end in itself. The Gangs of New York and The Aviatior epitomized this trend, exploiting successfully the wonderment that historical films can bring to the imagined past with figures larger than life. Viva Visconti. However, this inflated sensibility falls flat on the mean streets of South Boston in this interminable playing out of double-subterfuge, in which characters (more like caricatures) play out their appointed roles with a noticeable absence of subtlety or nuance. Nicholson is a parody of himself (though wonderful to watch even at his most absurd), Matt Damon seems unintentionally oblivious to the darkness of Colin Sullivan's soul--we have no idea of what makes him tick beyond the small favors offered in the opening scene, while Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Sheen--wonderful actors all--play out their stereotypes with little psychological resonance. Leonardo DiCaprio shows yet again that he is one of the finest dramatic actors of his generation, but there is no catharsis in the inevitable outcome, which takes an impossibly long time to occur. The big surprise is Vera Farmiga, who displays exquisite emotional range and complexity, and should emerge as a formidable female lead worthy of serious dramatic roles, which are sure to come to her (with some help from the NY Times Magazine, which extolled her talents last month -- legitimately, it appears -- in a cover story.) The film also includes a great supporting cast of colorful thugs. But you sit through all the twists and turns of this interminably complex narrative feeling that you're looking at the work of a masterful technician whose infatuation with his cinematic virtuosity has become an end in itself, trumping his capacity, in spite of this film's pretentious title, to tell a meaningful or compelling story, which is easy enough to forget once you have exited the theater.
I remember when I saw Taxi Driver for the first time, not having a clue what it was about in advance. I left the theater rattled, irate, and a bit unhinged, wondering how anybody make a move that was such an assault on my expectations and sensibilities. It was unnerving, politically disturbing, and ultimately a profound expression of the Nixon years--certainly one of the best films of its time. I was fairly unnerved also when I waked out of the Departed, feeling that it was much ado about nothing, a waste of fissionable talent, wishing that I could have departed sooner. Perhaps like Bunuel's Exterminating Angel, Scorsese wanted to see how much misery he could put the viewer through while keeping him squirming in his seat.