Reviewed by Tim Wong

STUDIOS take note: if you need a movie remade, hope like hell that Martin Scorsese comes knocking at your door. Now that retreads – particularly those of breakout foreign hits – are so absurdly commonplace, what’s revitalizing about The Departed is that it owes virtually no debt to its Hong Kong predecessor Infernal Affairs. It’s a robust, standalone beast that rightfully discards the hairspray, gun-cocked posturing, and Canto-pop gleam of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s original triad fiesta, settling for the blue-collar starch of the Irish in working class Boston, MA. And what it lacks in the taut, conceptual realisation of the original’s undercover conceit it makes up for in its sizeable mean streak. We live in an angry place Scorsese maintains, full of seething masculine violence to the screaming furies of the Dropkick Murphys. In militant times goaded by the Bush Doctrine and his invasive Patriot Act (which this film indulges with glee), it’s little surprise that the nostrum spoken here is one of a bullet to the head.


Displaying newfound commercial nous, Scorsese grinds out a grunty spectacle, complete with a macho cast and two squirmish leads who nervously masquerade their way as ‘moles’ planted on either side of the law: Matt Damon’s Sullivan is the state detective in the pocket of Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson); Leonardo DiCaprio’s Costigan is the cop feigning loyalty to Costello’s motley crew. This is certainly a man’s film in a man’s world, littered with homophobic gestures and liberal use of the word ‘c**t’; where the only female character is a tertiary love interest who tenuously bridges the Costigan-Sullivan game of charades. If there’s cause for celebration in all this, it’s the return of the profane to Scorsese’s cinema, freshly bleeding with acerbic dialogue, extreme prejudice, paedophilic priests, and dirty men in porno theatres.

With that said, having established The Departed is a good remake, what’s less assured is its place within the director’s oeuvre. That requires a rethink of the likes of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas – all similarly aggressive portraits of male American rage. The Departed may be a louder, more feral extension of The Sopranos coupled casually with the violence, racism, and penance of the aforementioned works, but given the crowding of the gangland genre and Marty’s own exhaustion of the organised crime world, his latest effort can be considered only moderate Scorsese at best. Chiefly, neither the crackle or pop of The Aviator materialises here – there a few livelier examples of Scorsese/Thelma Scoonmaker's collaboration than their Howard Hughes biopic – while too many big dicks in a gangbang mean actor egos are constantly crossing swords. Donning sunglasses, Nicholson cannot be tamed, caricaturing himself as the film’s growling Irish godfather with a fondness for leopard skin (appropriate for a big bad wolf, I suppose); elsewhere, Mark Wahlberg swears himself silly, talking smack like he’s Vanilla Ice. The principles effectively try to outdo one another, and the film threatens to combust as a result – as does the unfocused soundtrack, with Patsy Cline stuck mostly on loop.

Scorsese impersonating Scorsese isn’t a deal breaker; few filmmakers today have outlasted as many setbacks, and none can assert the same longevity and thirst in a medium as fickle as this. And the current millionaires club of Brett Ratner and Gore Verbinski can only dream of being a moderate Scorsese. Yet if The Departed is a muscular work, it’s also an extraneous one wayward of the canon; just as Nicholson’s howling self-impression can’t live up to the mystique, neither can Martin’s imitation of Scorsese. There are better films about Boston (Mystic River), and better remakes by Scorsese (Cape Fear). Though finally graced with box office success, the kicker is that Scorsese didn’t have to remake an existing film to do it; he just had to remake himself.