[arnoldsoccer4]

Ok since no one has pulled the Team America yet,


MAAAAAAAAT DAAAAAMON!

 

[vcoheda]

Just saw the Departed again. Second viewing. A few comments.

1. The Two Leads. Damon does a decent job but his character is underdeveloped. You're not really sure what he is thinking and his motivations, especially at the end are not entirely clear. The bedroom scene where he talks about making a fresh start would have been a great opportunity to really flesh out his character. Never happened. DiCaprio is amazing. He should have been nominated for best actor for this role. Great performance throughout. You really liked him and could sense that he was in too deep. Feel so bad at the end when he gets shot. Still upsetting.

2. The Rest. Nicholson is both very good and very bad. His mannerisms and overacting are annoying. He is great in the beginning. Starts to lose it a bit as the movie goes on. Overall though his character is believable. The girl doesn't do much but serves a purpose, and wow what a slamming bod! Sheen, Baldwin, and Wahlberg are good as well. Of the three, Baldwin makes the most of his role. Sheen was the least memorable. Wahlberg would have been better if he did not play the tough guy in every scene. It is odd that he does this and makes his character very one dimensional. So much so, that the ending seems a bit out of place. The guys in the gang were decent as well. The one with the thick Irish accent was pretty funny.

3. The Story. Scorsese to start the movie does a great job laying out the characters and their histories (giving you brief little snapshots of each). He gives you a lot of information quickly, but it is well done and not confusing. It allows him to start telling the story after the first 15 minutes. The main story, the lives the characters lead and their interactions, is very good. You learn a little bit about everyone. And of course the emphasis is on the double lives led by the two leads. The move is pretty long - and the passage of time in between scenes is hard to figure out - but the pace and action is quick enough to keep you interested. However, the ending is not quite satisfying (although I'm not sure I can think of a better one) and there is a lot hinted at yet unresolved.

4. Observations.

-- What does Nicholson give Damon's character when he graduates from the Academy? It is something impressive, we can tell from Damon's reaction, but what it is, I don't know. I saw no reference to it in the movie. My best guess is that the contents of the box were not important and the scene was to just show that Jack was a surrogate father to Damon's character. Parents always give their children a nice gift when they graduate.

-- Who is the father and what did she have to tell DiCaprio? These two are linked. I tend to feel that DiCaprio was the father (there is enough hinted at to suggest this) and that this is what she had to tell him. Also explains why she was so upset at the funeral and had no comment to Damon about the baby.

-- What is in the envelope? It had to be information outlining Damon as the rat and revealing the existence and whereabouts of the tapes to prove it. It must have also said to give this information to Wahlberg's character, which explains the ending. DiCaprio figured that if he could not expose Damon then hopefully Wahlberg - the only person on the force he trusted - could. He doesn't know that Wahlberg is not a cop anymore. When Wahlberg learns about the information, he does bring Damon to justice, in the only way he thinks possible.

-- At what point does Damon decide to end his double life and become a cop, before or after he finds out Nicholson is a rat? Second viewing I started to believe that Damon wanted out much earlier than I thought previously. Damon still worked with Jack because he wanted to find the mole (DiCaprio) and eliminate him because the mole may have known Damon's identity. When he learns that Jack is an FBI informant, he has to accelerate his plan. He only cared about himself. Damon tells Jack at the end, all that screwking and no sons. Jack did not want a heir, did not want to be replaced. No one could do what he did. But Damon (the closest thing he had to a son) was the one to finally take him down. Actually, DiCaprio in a sense was a better son. He tried to convince Jack to get out of the game and at the end, you felt that he almost didn't want to see him go down.

-- Is the rat imagery effective. I thought it generally was but I found it unnecessary and a little distracting at the end. The term of course refers to someone who betrays a colleague, friend, one's party, or beliefs/ideas. I think one of the main themes of the movie is why people betray and how or why they become corrupt. Power and self-preservation seem to have a lot to do with it.

-- Why is the movie called The Departed. I'm not sure. The phrase is used once in the movie to refer to a character early on who is killed. And that is what it means -- reference to a deceased person. But why title it that. The only thing that comes to mind is there is a lot of death in the movie (of characters seen or just referred to) and these events shape and inform some of the character's behavior and actions. Maybe he called the movie The Departed because of the powerful effect they can have on the living. Not sure though.

 

[bahringe]

I'm watching it tonight.

 

[OIC]

And the 2007 Oscar for Best Motion Picture goes to...

"THE DEPARTED"

 

[vcoheda]

This is Scorsese's year. best picture and director, for sure.

 

[regal]

I thought Wahlberg was great. He played it tough on the new recruit for his own good. When he blows up "I Quit" at Damon it is very powerful. Wahlberg was no rat, his agenda was clear. Wahlberg was the hero of the movie, it is interesting that Scorsese didn't develop his character more, I think it was on purpose to keep Wahlberg's character pure. He was the consummate "Good Cop."

 

[Kirosia]

Watched it yesterday. Liked it a lot more than infernal affairs. Even though it was long, it kept me fairly interested.

Didn't like Jack Nicholson goin' all nutty near the end. No pretzels.

 

[Assorted]

I thought it was a good movie, especially when Sullivan got shot by that... guy who got the leave.

Btw at the end when the shrink was listening to the recording with a headphone were they the Senn HD280 Pro?

 

[nineohtoo]

^Probably. Just another part that The Departed messed up where Infernal Affairs did well. At the beginning of IA, DiCaprio's character worked part time in a hi-fi shop, where Damon's character went shopping for some tube amps and stuff for his new home. At the end of the film(where in departed, the wife gets the disc), the hi-fi is delivered with a demo disc that plays back something similar to what was played back in the departed.

Only thing I liked more about this was how they were both seeing the psychiatrist. Definitely added more tension, and maybe even more to the characters. However, I did like how Andy Lau's wife in the movie was a writer, and her story's character reflected his.

As much as I hate to admit it though, I think DiCaprio fit the role better, and did it better than Tony Leung.

 

[Zuerst]

I like the original (Infernal Affairs) better overall... but I like The Departed's ending a bit better.

 

[dmunky]

I just saw The Departed today. I did like Infernal Affairs a bit better but if I hadn't seen it first, I would have thought The Departed was as good as the critics say it was. I also missed the hifi element of Infernal Affairs in The Departed outside of the brief instance of Mcintosh components and Senn 280s.

Honestly, seeing Infernal Affairs is what piqued my interest in tubes in the first place. It's probably the only time I saw our obsession more or less displayed on film.

 

[Aman]

It was an alright film. I just saw it tonight, and right now it appears that Scorsese is losing his touch. I felt my intelligence was insulted a couple of times; particularly with his stupid camera phase tricks and the overly-obvious use of symbolic images (like the rodent on the ledge at the very end).

But Jack Nicholson's performance, like usual, was outstanding. Can't say I cared for the Boston accents - they kind of got to me after a while

 

[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Assorted /img/forum/go_quote.gif Btw at the end when the shrink was listening to the recording with a headphone were they the Senn HD280 Pro?

Who cares? Did you see all of that intense McIntosh gear they were plugged into?!

 

[blessingx]

I'll paste what I said over at the Best Films thread...

I was feeling guilty of the The Departeds status, without seeing the originating source. Just finished Infernal Affairs and although the mechanics are very similar, the results are not. I can certainly see why those looking for action would prefer the earliers economic pacing, however little of the latters greatness appears (at least in IAs first film - someone let us know if it shows in the two sequels). The identity loss in the shape of chest beating fake masculinity, repressed homosexuality, family history, etc. which makes Scorseses film move beyond its genre is noticeably absent in IA, no? I don't want to be unfair to IA, but they're after much different targets, right?

Of interest...

Quote:

2 Feb 07 DeNiro to Join Scorsese in Departed II? With a domestic take of $125.2 million, Warner Bros. Pictures and director Martin Scorsese are seriously considering following the money and making a sequel to Academy Award nominated film "The Departed". According to the Hollywood Reporter: "Talks are under way to put together a sequel to the crime thriller, which has garnered five Oscar nominations and is the biggest boxoffice hit of Scorsese's long career. Sources say that "Departed" writer William Monahan is working on a take that would bring back the temperamental foul-mouthed cop played by Mark Wahlberg, who received an Oscar nomination for the role, and introduce a new character to be played by none other than Robert De Niro. Sources caution that Scorsese would need to approve any take before development was to move forward. A prequel is not being ruled out, either. "Departed" is an adaptation of the Hong Kong pic 'Infernal Affairs,' to which Warners acquired the rights in 2003. The studio also had option rights to the movie's two sequels."

 

[imported_za_boy]

I saw it a while back, thought it was great, gonna buy the DVD as soon as it comes out here.