Stunning remake: but why a remake, from Scorsese?

Rating: 8/10 (8 October 2006)

Writer William Monahan uses a borrowed premise, borrowed plot, for Martin Scorsese's exciting and violent new crime movie, The Departed. The Irish Catholic intonation of the title emphasizes the Boston setting. We're far from the HongKong of the original, Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak's Infernal Affairs . A group of Chinese triad gangsters are mocked with racial epithets, as if to further distance the new version from the Asian original. But the HongKong source remains. It's an illustrious one: the original was a well-made, well-acted film and so hugely successful two sequels appeared before this remake could be finished.
Internal Affairs' mirror-image plot structure is so clever and one might almost say so obvious that it's surprising it was never used before. It gets deeper than ever into the always potentially incestuous, sometimes interchangeable, relationship between cops and robbers. In this story, the two main characters do cross over. And their goal is to stay there. In the original there is perhaps more of a sense conveyed of how hard it is to sustain the deception over time. Everything is so fast and furious in The Departed we don't think of the time.
The cunning premise is that once upon a time there were two young men, who both eventually became police cadets. One almost from the start (we see him as a mere kid, at a soda fountain) becomes the protégé of a gangland boss who, when the boy becomes a man, persuades him to infiltrate the police force and spy on its activities for the gang. Matt Damon is at his most unappealing and blank as this slick liar. The other is a smart kid from a seedy family with Irish mafia links but an honest if unsuccessful dad, now departed, who doesn't do so well as a police cadet but is eagerly recruited by the police undercover division as an ideal person to infiltrate the gang. Leonardo DiCaprio is overwrought but strong as the pill-popping pseudo crook, who of course is in more danger. He must live among sadists, bad guys. The cops have foul mouths: this is writer Monahan's delight. But they are not made to appear as psychopaths.
The two men are like stage managers, observing and calling shots from inside to a force outside. But unlike the God (and the artist) of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist who looks down from above, "within or behind or beyond or above his work, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails," these two mirror-image undercover operatives are always hiding and in danger of being found out, vulnerable to the consequences of any action. In the original, you're struck by how alike they are. They run the same dangers and play the same game of betrayal of associates. Here in the American version somehow the contrast is made stronger. The film is nihilistic and cruel, but it is moral in this aspect. Damon is a despicable fat cat, given a posh apartment. DiCaprio is a nervous outsider, sensitive and suffering. But even Damon and DiCaprio have a certain square-jawed similarity.
The Chinese original had the two major matinée idols of HongKong film, Jeff Lau in Damon's role and Tony Leung in DiCaprio's, so you can't say it too didn't have big names. It ran fifty minutes shorter though and the performances were more understated: there was a greater economy and subtlety. Using Damon, Mark Wahlberg, and Charlie Sheen adds to the authentic sound of the Boston accents. The overlay is convincing. Another new touch is having a woman both moles are interested in; Vera Farmiga is a psychotherapist whom Damon dates and DiCaprio is treated by. There's also Ray Winstone, excellent, as always, as crime boss Costello's associate.
And there's Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello himself. Since the running time and the baroque expansion of scenes gives the actors too much time to ham it up, Jack just winds up being Jack. Apart from that, he doesn't feel like a crime boss. He doesn't have the physical authority of James Gandolfini, the stillness of real menace (which Winstone has). He feels like an over-the-top actor who's descended into mannerisms and comedy.
In the original film, the parallelism is cunning: it's all you really need; the situation itself is extremely suspenseful. You don't have to jazz it up.
The new version is also more moralistic. DiCaprio is more of a martyr and Damon more of a scumbag. The Chinese version makes you feel more sympathy for each, more conscious of the danger they're both in and the parallelism of their roles.
Monahan is praised for his dialogue, and it's certainly spicy, but it's overdone. All Wahlberg does as the undercover cops' handler is insult and swear at people. He's generally the most appealing character in a crime movie, but this time he's a little wasted. Nicholson's character is incapable of referring to a priest without mentioning pederasty or a wife without alluding to fellatio.
All this aside, the two and a half hours go by quickly enough. Scorsese's editor Thelma Schoonmaker does a bang-up job; the actors are in fine (if in Nicholson's case overripe) form. This is Scorsese's first crime movie since Casino and his most entertaining in a long time. It's also arguably his most nihilistic. After everybody blows everybody else's head off and the bad guy gets a commendation (but not the girl), there's nothing left on the ground but blood and cynicism. Great entertainment, a damned good show. But still the question remains: why does a filmmaker of the caliber of Martin Scorsese want to do a remake, even of a story as archetypal as Lau and Mak's Infernal Affairs?