The good and the bad

Rating: 7/10 (28 June 2007)

In the end this turned out to be a quite good movie but it still has serious problems. After half an hour I felt it was heading for disaster but it got better.
Bad things about The Departed are (1) the pathetic macho dialog (you can illustrate a masculine culture without lame sexist jokes all the time), (2)the Keanu Reeves-like "acting" of Mark Wahlberg, (3) the female main character (one-dimensional and boring), (4) the fact that the basic plot is stolen from the Hong Kong-film "Infernal Affairs", (5) the scene where Jack Nicholson is singing and of course (6) the dialect (what is that? Loose it if you can't talk like an Irish. Ridiculous!).
Good things: (1) Leonardo DiCaprio! (I'm very surprised but he really saves this movie), (2) Matt Damon is a bad actor but he pulls it off, perfect as a slimy bad guy, (3) it was exciting and (4) the unsuspected ending.
I still can't understand what Scorsese wants to achieve with his work these days but The Departed is a big step up from Gangs of New York (where DiCaprio was very poor). 4 Oscars? Hell no, but it's a nice movie anyway.