Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Departed (2006; Martin Scorsese)

To be completely honest, I really wasn't expecting much from this Scorsese crime movie. I mean, sure, Scorsese has made some good crime dramas, but the whole genre feels sort of dead to me. It all is starting to blend together (kind of like Westerns).


So one guy decides to be a dirty cop, and another guy decides (kind of) that he wants to be an undercover cop for the guy that the dirty cop is being dirty for. Yeah, if you thought that sentence was messy, imagine how they must feel. So the movie follows as both of the cops try to figure out who the other is before one of them is dead.

To stay in character, I will start with good and move my way to bad. This movie was in fact a thriller. Meaning that I was really interested in who was going to get caught by who first. That part of the movie really did have my attention, but some other things... eh... (that good thing didn't last long).

First thing you notice is that they stress being Irish a lot, however, I felt that whole part of the film really wasn't needed. Maybe they thought it would add more dimension to the characters, but I personally could care less if they are Irish.

The camera is very direct and to the point. That is good. It just isn't great. In a great movie, you want more from your camera then just normal. The score seemed sort of out of place in some parts, and even at times felt like they forgot to tell someone to stop the music, as it continues on into the next scene, out staying it's welcome.

I feel I should point this out. The problem with long movies is that for every fifteen or twenty minutes you extend a film past around an hour and forty minutes, the stress put on the pacing of the film is increased exponentially. I feel Scorsese, while handling it okay, needs a little more practice with it if he wants to continue making movies that are as long as this one (two and a half hours).

As most of those problems are very minor, and the story itself was very gripping, this film still walks away with...

Score: 3/5


Notes: Cocaine Shower, Impotence, Won an Oscar (Hey, that works on more people then you think)

2 comments:

Cameron Hilker said...

You still need to watch Infernal Affairs--the inspiration for this series. It's a fantastic trilogy.

Anonymous said...

One of my favorite movies ever.


(see, I do read your blogs)