The Departed (Screen Daily Review)

[dleedlee]

http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?st ... 919&r=true

I know it's not an Asian film. Just thought I'd keep these reviews in one place.

The Departed

Mike Goodridge in Los Angeles 02 October 2006

Dir: Martin Scorsese. US. 2006. 119 mins.

Martin Scorsese returns to familiar territory – the world of inner-city gangsters – in his latest film, an expertly-crafted genre thriller which stands a chance at becoming one of his biggest box office hits yet. Remaking Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's 2002 Hong Kong blockbuster Infernal Affairs, Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan have taken that film's cracking story and reset it in the colourful setting of south Boston where hard-nosed cops wage war on ruthless Irish American crime factions. Fast-paced, unpretentious and bristling with rich language and tasty detail, The Departed is bound to find a large mainstream adult audience.

Although critics may be hard on Scorsese for remaking a foreign-language film, his Americanised film stands as both homage to and independent of the slick HK original. Infernal Affairs was a superb entertainment dominated by the laconic presence of Asian stars Andy Lau and Tony Leung. Scorsese's adaptation is successful because it truly starts afresh, finding its feet in the Boston setting, recreating the characters as authentic Southies, and investing screen time in the dialect, traditions and characters of the city. It's one of the best examples of a US remake in some years.

The Aviator is Scorsese's highest grosser to date with $213m in 2004/5, while Gangs Of New York is second on $190m in 2002/3 and Cape Fear third on $182.3m in 1991. The Departed is certainly likely to rival these performances, although this is a strictly adult film with an abundance of cursing and some extreme and unpleasant violence.

Warner Bros has worldwide rights excluding some key territories sold by producer Graham King such as the UK (Entertainment), France (TFM) and Italy (Medusa). The film opens day and date next Friday in the US and UK and has a continental European launch at the Rome Film Festival in Oct.

The film starts in much the same fashion as the Hong Kong version. Frank Costello (Nicholson) is a powerful gangster who nurtures a young south Boston kid Colin Sullivan (Damon) and supports him through police academy, training him to be a high-ranking insider for his interests in the police force. Meanwhile Billy Costigan (DiCaprio), another kid from "Southie", also goes through police academy and is recruited by poice Captain Queenan (Sheen) and his deputy Dignan (Wahlberg) to go undercover into Costello's gang.

Costello is initially skeptical about Costigan, suspicious that he has quit the police force to return to his neighbourhood, but the young man soon wins his trust after a few violent tests and joins Costello's inner circle.

Sullivan meanwhile rises swiftly in the force eventually joining the special investigations unit designed specifically to bring Costello down.

As the war between the two sides of the law rages, it becomes obvious to both Costello and Queenan that each has a mole in their camp. Costigan and Sullivan find themselves in constant fear for their lives as scrutiny on their every move becomes more intense and the stakes become higher. Only when Queenan gets caught in the crossfire do matters come to a head.

Scorsese peoples the drama with a wonderful assortment of salty characters from Wahlberg (whose character was not in the original) as the pugilistic, foul-mouthed Dignan to Alec Baldwin as the fearsome head of the police unit to Winstone as French, Costello's number two. Vera Farmiga is effective as the only woman in the film, a police psychiatrist who is both Sullivan's live-in lover and Costigan's shrink.

DiCaprio and Damon acquit themselves well as the two men who have "departed" from normal existence into lives of deception and secret identity; Nicholson, as expected, steals the show with a portrait in genuine villainy that is as chilling as it is colourful.

It's not an awards picture like Gangs or The Aviator became, but there are some fine elements here – Nicholson, Monahan's script, Howard Shore's thunderously dramatic score, the gritty camerawork by Michael Ballhaus – which could get recognition.

Among elements which are changed from the Hong Kong film are the fact that Costigan's secret is known by two people not one, the fact that Costigan sleeps with the psychiatrist (it remains platonic in the first film) and the death of a leading character in this film, who survived for a sequel in the Asian version.

Production companies
Plan B, Initial Entertainment Group, Vertigo Entertainment in association with Media Asia Films

Worldwide dist
Warner Bros
Initial Entertainment Group (select territories)

Executive producers
Roy Lee, Doug Davison, G Mac Brown, Kristin Zahn, Gianni Nunnari

Producers
Brad Pitt, Brad Grey, Graham King

Screenplay
William Monahan

Cinematography
Michael Ballhaus

Production design
Kristi Zea

Editor
Thelma Schoonmaker

Music
Howard Shore

Main cast
Leonardo DiCaprio
Matt Damon
Jack Nicholson
Mark Wahlberg
Martin Sheen
Alec Baldwin
Ray Winstone
Vera Farmiga
Anthony Anderson
Kevin Corrigan

[Chinoco]

SADLY, the fact that this is a remake of Infernal Affairs is almost being hidden!