Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Departed
I'm really not having a good week for seeing Oscar contenders. The Departed has been hyped to the sky in advance of its nomination, but I don't feel it deserves it.OK, I'll grant you, the premise is clever. A police unit that uses moles to investigate organized crime is itself infiltrated by a mole. Moley, moley, moley!
Clever, but hardly brilliant. The woods are full of clever crime dramas. You don't see, for example, Lucky Number Slevin nominated for major awards. There are crime dramas that are smart, not just clever, such as Mystic River. But The Departed is not a particularly smart movie.
And, oooh, my goodness, the range that these actors give us. Matt Daimon is cocky. Leonardo di Caprio is brooding. Martin Sheen is paternal. Jack Nicholson is weird and self-indulgent. They should have just used CGI animated characters, for all the originality we see in the casting or performances.
But while the film isn't overflowing with originality, there are a couple bits of funny foreshadowing I enjoyed. Early in the film, students at the police academy receive a lecture on the physics of bullet wounds to the head, which proves useful information for the audience since we have to watch so many head-shootings during the course of the film.
In another scene, diCaprio is mocked by one of his superiors for making a literary reference. "What's the matter - Shakespeare not good enough for you?" Indeed, the movie's bloody climax, which leaves almost none of the film's main characters standing, is quite Shakespearean in its unrelenting brutality. Still, it is more than a little pretentious for Scorcese to try to put a literary dress on scenes that feature so many brain-splatterings.
Don't get me wrong. I like crime dramas as much as the next guy, and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie on that level. If you're looking to get your adrenalin level pumped with a nice shoot-em-up action movie, by all means see this movie. If you are looking to be edified by a thought-provoking, artistically crafted Oscar contender, look elsewhere.
posted by Mentok @ 2:12 PM,
2 Comments:
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At 5:41 PM,
X said...
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Well, the story/script was actually purchased from Hong Kong - the Hollywood version of a Hong Kong movie. Another movie with a similar storyline was produced a few years ago in Hong Kong.
Anyhow, haven't seen your Oscar's picks yet..... -
At 7:03 PM,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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I swear sometimes...
but this movie way overdid it.
