Mar­tin Scors­ese works almost con­stantly, direct­ing doc­u­men­taries between each higher-profile fea­ture film. But the fre­quency of his fic­tion films is far enough apart for them to remain much more hotly antic­i­pated, and every year that went by with him being passed over by the Acad­emy Awards only more firmly estab­lished his sta­tus as a Great Amer­i­can Director.

Despite finally being the occa­sion of his long-overdue recog­ni­tion by the Acad­emy, The Departed prob­a­bly won’t be ranked among his more idio­syn­cratic and per­sonal films like Mean Streets, Rag­ing Bull, and Good­fel­las (not to men­tion his still-underappreciated films about reli­gious faith: The Last Temp­ta­tion of Christ and Kun­dun). The Departed is a remake of the 2002 Chi­nese thriller Infer­nal Affairs, and thus should actu­ally be cat­e­go­rized along­side Scorsese’s other star-studded remake, Cape Fear. Both are undoubt­edly stamped with Scorsese’s auteur touch, but still not among his most dis­tinc­tively per­sonal work.

So, Jack, what was Polan­ski really like?

See­ing the film for the sec­ond time, this time on the small screen, this Dork Reporter is struck by the extremely high energy and pace. Like Michael Mann’s Heat (an influ­ence on Infer­nal Affairs), the story con­cerns the par­al­lel nar­ra­tives of a cop — or should I say “cwawp” — (Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy Costi­gan) and a crim­i­nal (Matt Damon as Colin Sul­li­van). But unlike Mann’s stately pac­ing, Scors­ese keeps every scene remark­ably short and fran­ti­cally cross-cuts between the dual nar­ra­tives. Were Marty and edi­tor Thelma Schoon­maker chug­ging espres­sos in the edit­ing suite?

One aspect of the plot I still don’t fully under­stand: what exactly does crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nichol­son) offer Colin to ensure such undy­ing loy­alty? It doesn’t seem enough that Frank pro­vided minor char­ity to Colin’s strug­gling fam­ily in his youth. What does Colin really owe him?

So, Jack, what was Anto­nioni really like?

But any nag­ging pac­ing or char­ac­ter issues are more than excused by the price­less repar­tee between Capt. Ellerby (Alec Bald­win) and Sgt. Dig­nam (Marky Mark Mark Wahlberg):

ELLERBY:
Go fuck yourself.

DIGNAM:
I’m tired from fuck­ing your wife.

ELLERBY:
How is your mother?

DIGNAM:
Good, she’s tired from fuck­ing my father.


---

Offi­cial movie site: thedeparted.warnerbros.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

Tweet

Related Posts:

1. 
   I Call First: Who’s That Knocking at My Door?
2. 
   Pride and Glory
3. 
   Bottle Rocket