The Departed

Director: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Billy Costigan), Matt Damon (Colin Sullivan), Jack Nicholson (Frank Costello), Mark Wahlberg (Dignam), Martin Sheen (Oliver Queenan), Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) & Vera Farmiga (Madolyn)
Plot: Its a tale of two men from opposite sides of the law who are dispatched to disclose each other’s enemies identity in a cat & mouse game.

The east meets west – Infernal Affair vs The Departed, in a contrast.

If you guys love “Infernal Affairs (I, II & III) aka Mou Gan Dou aka 无间道”, you will definitely love this one. This Hollywood remake does retain the core & main essence of the HK version much to the fact that Scorsese who has a talent for the poetic & the profane, amicably explored double lives, deception of those moles from both sides of the law to the details that in phases of the movie, your heart skipped fast enough to level the outcome of the cat & mouse chase between the two.

Colin graduating from the police academy.

The line-ups was awesome as both men, DiCaprio & Damon resemble as much as Andy Lau & Tony Leung in the actual Infernal Affairs with their youthfulness & professionalism. Both understand their roles so well that I bet this remake involves hours of tedious study & comprehension of the HK version before they partake the act seriously.

Unit specialisation time, with Dignam (Mark) – the foul mouthed sarge.

It was a long movie that lasted for two & half hours. The storyline was lengthy particularly in the main part as Scorsese has shorten the intro’s by hiding no secrets of who is the actual moles on both sides. His aim is not to let the audience guessing who is who & who is doing what in the movie, but what Scorsese emphasise here is how both sides are cautiously playing their game of cat & mouse with aims to disclose each other’s identity as soon as possible so to eliminate their enemy at once.

Op meeting with Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) in the front briefing his men.

At times there were tense situation when Billy’s cover was almost busted by Colin during the ‘extraction’ plan that he executed with Frank’s to extract the mole out from the triad. It was busted eventually but Scorsese was smart enough to prolong the plot so the deadman in Frank’s crew haven’t had time to reveal Billy’s identity albeit he survived the gun fight prior to Queenan’s death from the building fall.

Troubled workforce – a scene where different units in a PD argue.

Although it was a thriller, an ubiquitous masculine portrayal about tough cop & tough gangster thingy, Scorsese did slot in a small part of romance between Colin & Madolyn & Billy & Madolyn, that makes the whole storyline a well-balanced tenure unlike Miami Vice who are supposed to be a serious action flick being spoilt by umpteen amounts of pointless & unnecessary love-making scenes.

Mushy time – Madolyn & Colin

The ending was rather surprising after Billy was shot dead by another of Frank’s mole in the PD! Colin eventually eliminate his fellow mole with a PB shot so to cover his ass, making up stories during the post mortem thus suggesting to the PD to promote Billy a posthumous award for bravery & cleverly put all the blame to another fellow mole in the PD who gunned down Billy & Brown during the fracas at the elevator.

The finale was quite shocking as you will be served with a cop-shoot-cop scene with total toll of four cops gunned down within 10 minutes! I recollect that the finale scene is made as if squeezing 3 climax scene of each Infernal Affair epic! I vaguely remember anyway if those cop-shoot-cop scene does exits in IA?

Near climax – an Infernal Affair deja-vu on the rooftop!

Overall the movie was great. Creatively choreographed & distinctively contented. It does keep me awake in the cinema as the flow of the movie is carefully balanced with drama (yap yap) & thrills that fluctuate your curiosity instantaneously that makes you wanna know what is the outcome in the end.

My rating:

This movie is for the patient & mature audience who detest pointless speedy wham-bam-goddamn scenes plus those who doesn’t mind about gruesome blood splashes.