Mobster flick hits theatres
Martin Scorsese returns to the screen after The Aviator to deliver one of the best films of this year, hands down- a run-amuck gangster picture with as many renowned actors as you can stomach and enough oozing gunshot wounds and f-bombs to make anyone smile.
Following last weekend's $27 million debute, The Departed is shooting every other movie in the skull while cursing them all to Hell in a thick Bostonian accent.
Scorsese reverts to his comfort zone, the American gangster film, with The Departed, yet he sets the plot in Boston instead of his hometown and usual location, New York. His name on the director's chair apparently pulls in talent like a magnet the size of Montana- this film is chock full of A-listers.
Jack Nicholson makes his return to the screen as the mob boss Frank Costello with the plot revolving around the two leads, Leonardo DiCaprio's Billy Costigan and Matt Damon's Colin Sullivan. In addition, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Sheen round out the supporting cast.
With one of the longest pre-title sequences ever, the stage is set for the complex plot, Costigan goes undercover in the mob for an elite division of the State Police while Sullivan goes undercover in the State Police.
As Costigan and Sullivan try to uncover each other's identity, the result is an inspired bloodbath of bullets and brain. The plot is a joyous rollercoaster of blood and secrets, yanking the audience along its two and a half hour running time at a rip-roaring pace. The dialogue is spectacular-the thick New England accents riddled with creative cursing, lending the film a particularly amusing type of humor based on this Boston-Irish culture.
Pay close attention to Wahlberg and Baldwin, as they steal scene after scene from the leads with their off-the-wall and hot-headed characters. Scorsese has an incredible sense of pacing in this relatively long movie, making it feel extremely short for its running time. He balances both protagonists with an ease only an absolute expert can handle, lending both characters their due development and consciousness.
His traditional style appears through occasional tracking shots and a comfortable swinging camera that catches the actions and expressions of his actors.
Based on a popular Chinese film, The Departed gains its individuality from the setting. Much humor is derived from the Bostonian culture that surrounds this bloody tale of backstabbing and lost morality, and the benefit of the outstanding cast in these respects cannot be underestimated.
Perhaps The Departed will be unjustly overlooked come Oscar time, but it is truly hard to deny the energy and brashness of this outstanding film.
