That's It Hollywood, Just Keep Slaughtering Those Foreign Flicks

Rating: 4/10 (27 February 2007)

Disclaimer: V for Vendetta should have won best picture of the year.
One would think that I would just give up on Hollywood films. However, there is an occasional surprise. When it comes down to it, though, I must mirror the sentiment of my good friend Fletch: "I want to see the filth!"
Okay, so how do you win an Academy award for best picture of the year? Well, you could make a movie about a mentally deficient idiot who takes a pivotal role in every major historical event for the past 40 years, have an overrated hack play the lead, and insert some repulsive underlying philosophy (i.e., submit to authority, or else!)  but that was already done in 1994. Things change, so 2006 requires a different strategy:
(1) Take a fantastic screenplay from a Hong Kong film. (2) Add $83 million dollars to your budget. (3) Insert the word "f * c k" randomly 214 times into the script. (4) Eliminate all of the character/plot complexities to pander to the simple-mindedness of American audiences. (5) Completely purge any intelligent or subtle elements. (6) Add 40 minutes of dead weight.
What do you get? You get the year's most pretentious feat of idiocy  The Departed.
The biggest disappointment with this film is the dialogue and character interaction, which are vitally important in the creation of an effective drama. Scorsese implemented his patented "4-Letter-Word Guide to Juvenile Screenplays."
Interestingly enough, I gathered the distinct impression that the insertion of these classless quotes was for no real purpose. This is evident in scenes where a particular character will make statements that seem to come from absolutely nowhere, as they have absolutely nothing to do with the scene up to that point. For example, Baldwin is preparing his police squad for a sting operation, only to then randomly tell Damon the following while talking really, really fast:
"You want to have a smoke? You don't smoke, do you? What, are you one of those fitness freaks, huh? Go f * c k yourself."
How the hell did Baldwin make the jump from police work to this? It makes no logical sense. Must be Scorsese's trademark film-making style. Clever man. The astuteness of these observations is mind-blowing. I wonder if it took longer than 5 seconds to adapt the original Hong Kong screenplay, or if they just used the "Replace" function in Microsoft Word to insert the word "f * c k" 214 times into the script. And yes, it was literally 214 times  I counted out of curiosity sake. I'm sure a middle school student could have done as much.
As could be predicted by a Hollywood production, the storyline was rather dim-witted:
(1) What's with the blatantly obvious tipoffs between Damon and Nicholson via cell phone. Don't the cops think it somewhat weird that Damon calls his "mother" or "father" to tell them his "friends are coming" immediately before a huge undercover operation? What the hell!?
(2) The sting operation was devoid of any intelligence or cleverness on the part of the filmmakers. Nicholson gets away because  get this  the cops were too stupid to put cameras near the rear of the warehouse, even though they put them everywhere else. Wow. I can't think of a less scintillating "cat and mouse" game than that.
(3) The scene between Martin Sheen and Nicholson is so fake. It's as if the filmmakers were faced with the fact that 70 minutes had passed without any tension between the protagonist and antagonist, and were thus forced to earn that tension with a 30-second superficial conversation replete with vulgarity. Bravissimo fellas. Too bad plot development takes much more effort than that.
So the ending finally comes. In perhaps the most elementary use of symbolism since Forrest Gump's "feather" scene, Scorsese shows a rat teetering on the edge of a railing! How long did it take to think of that one?
Oh yeah, and the soundtrack was horrible too.
Don't even think of pawning this film off as an original idea. Half a dozen scenes were ripped directly from Infernal Affairs, only executed ineptly. All of the great suspense sequences were already written for Scorsese. All he did was obliterate a well-written and intelligent script by inserting a series of incompetent scenes with lots of explicit violence, sex talk, and 40 minutes of dead weight in the form of pointless, boring moments. Nice job, Marty.
The Departed is totally mediocre as a stand-alone film, but it is helpful to beat a dead horse by quickly comparing it to the superior Hong Kong original.
The original introduced one of the most interesting, complex characters I can remember. The mole within the police department is not a straight-up antagonist, as Damon was  but instead operated in a gray zone that provided some stunning scenarios and plot developments that transcend any crime thriller ever made. It created a truly unique character for the film to revolve around.
The original was much more intelligent. There were scenes that required the viewer to think about what was going on. For example, the sting operation  a highlight of the film  was lengthy and subtle in it's portrayal of the moles and their communications with their bosses. Frankly, it rocked! Also, the relationships between the moles and their bosses were compelling and realistic, not over-dramatic. The Departed was made for people with an IQ of less than 50.
Think of it this way, if you thought any scene in The Departed was halfway decent, it was done more intelligently and entertainingly in Infernal Affairs. So go to your local Blockbuster and rent the true classic that "inspired" a juvenile, pretentious knockoff.