previous column	deadlyhippos home	next column

Movie Review: The Departed
10/10/06
by Stretch

Here is my review for "the departed", complete with pictures of the torn up movie ticket. Apparently that is how things are done around here, and Stretch is all about protocol.

Hey, I have an idea: let’s take the movies Good Will Hunting, Mystic River, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and mash them up into one three hour long viewing extravaganza. Sound like fun? Well put me in the time machine, ‘cause I need to go back to 2004 and make this movie before Martin Scorsese beats me to the punch.

The Departed by the numbers:

• Number of principle characters in the film that we are expected to keep track of: 1,256
• Number of said principle characters who are left alive at the end of the film: 11.5
• Number of seconds that Jack Nicholson’s Boston accent lasts after the first frame: 34 seconds
• Number of hours that this movie is good: 2
• Number of impending sex scenes which cause the viewer to assume rampant nudity is forthcoming: 7
• Number of sex scenes which deliver this: 0
• Number of bugs Jack Nicholson eats: 1
• Number of two-foot long fake tallywhackers we see protruding from underneath Jack Nicholson’s pot belly: 1 too many

This Friday, I attended the late night showing of The Departed with about 80 of Alabama’s best and brightest. I will attempt to sum up the audience reaction to this three hour crime epic:

Hours 1-2: hanging on every word

Hour 3: waves of laughter sweeping the audience after every forced plot twist

Let me say this now, and this cannot be stressed enough: when your film is getting bronx cheers in rural Alabama on opening night, you might be in trouble. This is not an overstatement. Virtually the entire theatre sarcastically yelped and giggled during the final third of the movie.

No, this is not a great film. Yes, this is a good fim. The direction is crisp and poignant, the pacing is articulate and even, and the cinematography is first rate. The acting is in a class by itself—Jack Nicholson is superb and Leo DiCaprio is Oscar-worthy. The score of Irish folk music mixed with classic rock sets a wonderful tone, and for the most part, the actors’ accents remain true throughout the movie.

Here is the plot: Meet Jack Nicholson, crime boss. Opposing him are Boston cops Martin Sheen, an unhinged Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin (who is actually very funny). Working for the police department is DiCaprio, who is embedded with the mob. Working for the mob is Matt Damon, who is embedded within the police department. Confused yet? One almost needs a notebook to keep the shifting allegiances straight, although by the end of the movie it doesn’t matter much, because, as Movie Critic People say, this film “doesn’t play by its own rules.”

No guy movie is complete without an entangling female lead, and Vera Farmiga plays the role capably. She is a psychiatrist that naturally winds up in a love triangle with the two competing spies (although, and trust Stretch on this one, therapists are generally prohibited from bedding their clients). Out of all the things I could say about Farmiga, I can’t help but be captivated by her eyes. They are amazing. Or, as SHAW simply emailed me, “hot unknown actress in a see through bra.” Eiher one is a pretty good description.

The violence in the movie is jarring, and is so to a degree that undermines the final act of the film. So many of the deaths happen instantly and without provocation or notice that by the final frame, we have become numb to the bullets and blood. When we are supposed to be shocked by the poignancy of someone’s death, we can’t feel much of anything other than “Oh, ok. So who’s left?” This becomes the film’s undoing. The final act resembles a March Madness bracket sheet of characters knocking each other off and in turn being knocked off by whomever else is left around. Many of these deaths are not lingered on or explained, and we are meant to feel as if we are being swept up in a violent crescendo. We don’t. We feel cheated, as if the moviemakers were in a hurry to wrap this thing up and get home for dinner.

Even so, I can’t complain too much. This is still a good looking movie. The dialogue is scorching, even when nothing is being said. Consider the scene when the two spies call each other’s cell phone. Neither knows who the other is, yet they have both been assigned to rat out the other. What do they say? Neither man says anything, and it is played perfectly.

Being Irish, I must give the movie a good review, although I don’t think Martin Scorsese intended for the entire audience, including me, to walk out of the theatre laughing like we had just seen a Wes Anderson picture.

Final review: ♥♥♥ (out of 4)