So for the first time in a few years, I really enjoyed my annual ritual of watching the Oscars last week. Ever since Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love my fondness for the event has waned a little more every year. For every show a film I wanted to see be awarded Best Picture took away the gold (Million Dollar Baby, Return of the King), there were as many when a dud took home the prize (A Beautiful Mind, Chicago). 2007’s show was different for me somehow though, as even when films that I loved were overlooked (Children of Men) another one seemed to be honored, such as Pan’s Labyrinth and Letters from Iwo Jima.
It is also possible that my goodwill for the broadcast is mostly due to Martin Scorsese finally getting HIS Oscar for Best Director. Even though the award was virtually a lock, I’m sure it seemed possible to the film maker that he could be turned away again, especially with Clint Eastwood being nominated, two years after beating Scorsese for the very same prize. It makes me wonder whether the award meant that much more to Scorsese after being denied so many times before. To tell you the truth, the moment probably couldn’t have been more perfect, as George Lucas, Steve Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppolla, the men who helped Scorsese change film making in the 1970’s, presented the award to him.
I’ve heard some critics say that they wished that the man had won the award for a better movie, but I think those people are underestimating the power of The Departed. Not as epic as The Aviator and Gangs of New York, but every bit as memorable. While Scorsese’s film doesn’t take place on the streets of New York, putting him in Boston (though a lot of this was actually shot in NYC) seemed to put a renewed streak of energy into the film maker. A combination of his new DiCaprio era and his gangland tales of old, The Departed, was everything that it could have been and more.
The Departed Starring Leonardo, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Originally, I was going to cover Casino before I looked The Departed, but seeing how the movie was just honored by the Academy, I thought I’d strike while the proverbial iron was hot. As a movie lover that has tried to become an aficionado of the works of John Woo, Ringo Lam, and other Hong Kong film makers, I was excited to no end to see that Martin Scorsese was going to base his next film on the best film to come out of the country in the last decade; Infernal Affairs. The movie about an undercover cop and a mob informant inside the police force was a taught thriller, and a terrific cat and mouse story, with each trying to discover the other’s identity before they get knocked off. Earning worldwide acclaim and spawning two sequels, Infernal Affairs was such a good movie that I was worried that perhaps a remake would not have been able to do it justice, a feeling that quickly died as soon as the opening credits of The Departed rolled.
As The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter begins its haunting guitar riffs while a voice over from Jack Nicolson’s Irish Mob Boss Frank Costello fills you in on civil unrest and the inner workings of the Boston underworld, you can feel yourself on familiar ground, your inner mind almost giving you a Pavlovian response to the way that Mean Streets and Goodfellas made you feel. This is a film maker sinking back into a world he has complete control over, knowing also the extent of his powers within the genre to be able to control his audience as well. It isn’t till I’m Shipping Up To Boston by the Dropkick Murphys blares on the soundtrack that you feel like you’re about to see something different from this director and that Scorsese is actually breaking new ground.
This blending of the old and the new is a prime reason for this reinvigorated Scorsese, giving us the streetwise fireworks we’ve come to expect. Though this film’s characters are not based on real people for the most part, I do love how you can see shades of Scorsese’s past protagonists in Undercover Officer Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mob Informer Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Each man seems to represent two sides of not only a war amongst cops and crooks, there’s a class struggle that seems to be going on here.
Much like Harvey Keitel’s Charlie in Mean Streets, DiCaprio’s Costigan is a blue collar worker, shown having to work for every bit of respect he can to get. While Charlie was just a low level mobster, he never seemed to be living beyond his mean, trying to be an honorable man as much as possible. You get this same sense from Costigan, who has to try twice as hard to get out of the South Boston projects and work his way through the Massachusetts State Police Academy. When he’s asked to go undercover in Costello’s mob, he again has to work his way up, living on his wits on the streets.
When I see Matt Damon’s Sullivan though, it’s easy to see parallels with Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill in Goodfellas as he’s a man with big dreams of living the good life, but has to go outside the law to reach those dreams. As Costigan is shown having to go through the ringer to earn respect early on, Sullivan seems to be a golden boy, able to have his success handed to him as he earns the love of his fellow officers as Costello hands him arrests on a platter to help him get promoted.
Filling in for the roles created by Tony Leung and Andy Lau in Infernal Affairs, DiCaprio and Damon are nothing short of phenomenal. Marred (or maybe even cursed) by his early success, DiCaprio seems to have finally gotten past the backlash and earned some real street cred with his role here. Costigan is a tortured man, constantly with his blood up trying to stay alive and keep up his gangster persona. He has to walk a fine line by not going in too deep with his lifestyle, not letting go of the ounce of humanity left to him. You can see the pain in his face as he keeps up his charade 24/7, the ulcers surely building up in Costigan’s insides as he rats out people that believe him to be their friend.
Damon is smooth and very charismatic as Sullivan, perhaps not realizing what a terrific cop he actually is while he earns points with law enforcement and thugs alike. Its difficult, especially early on, to not really like Sullivan almost completely, as its easy to see ourselves in someone that could have easily been corrupted early on, and then given a golden ticket. It seems to even make us like him even more as the cracks in his armor start to show and the stress starts to really get to him.
After the two leads, the role in Infernal Affairs that is most important to the proceedings probably Eric Tsang’s Sam, the mob leader whose gang this circle of crime swarms around. It’s not really fair to Tsang that his mirror role in The Departed is Frank Costello, played by an unbridled Jack Nicholson. A racial slur early on in the narration by Costello gives you some insight into the man’s persona, not pussyfooting around with people’s feelings. While some may have thought that Nicholson took this role too far and didn’t make him menacing enough, he at least gives a great Jack Nicholson performance.
Every moment he’s on screen is lightning, as its always fascinating to watch an actor of Nicholson’s caliber. Just as it’s awesome to see Scorsese back in his element, after sitting through Romantic Comedies from the actor in the last ten years, its terrific to watch Nicholson getting down and dirty as his own version of the personification of evil. Partially based on real life Boston Gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, Costello is a larger than life villain, terrifying the common people of his neighborhood as he walks in a room.
Just if we were left with just these three memorable performances in The Departed, the movie would be successful, but fortunately for them and us, the film boasts the best group of character actors in one Crime movie since David Mamet’s Heist. Martin Sheen provides a fatherly strength to his role as Captain Oliver Queenan, the man who sends Costigan on this dire mission. With Kennedy style accent in tow, Sheen is pitch perfect, never making his role showy, but always making it believable.
Another actor on an amazing streak is Ray Winstone, who brought a powerful punch to his work here, just as he did in the stunning Australian Western The Proposition. His Mr. French is Costello’s bulldog, doing the dirty work for a really dirty boss. What Winstone brings to the role is a sense of undying loyalty. He never really has to say it, but he would die for Costello in a heartbeat, and he’s also the most dangerous man on screen when ever he’s in a scene.
On the DVD for Mean Streets, Scorsese talks about his love for Abbott and Costello, which couldn’t be more evident than the scenes featuring Alec Baldwin as Police Captain Ellerby and the Oscar Nominated performance from Mark Wahlberg as and Sgt. Dignam. The two are lightning fast trash talkers in this movie, aided by the amazing camerawork of Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus. To be honest, my favorite scenes in this movie (a jokey police briefing and a sting operation that goes horribly wrong) are made memorable because of the smart-alecky dialogue from these two.
What’s amazing is that these two apparently weren’t even going to be in the film originally. Baldwin, is also horribly underrated as he does so much with little screen time, giving a signature supporting performance, just as he has in so many films before, such as The Aviator and especially Glengarry Glen Ross. According to the Internet Movie Database though, Mel Gibson was the man originally offered the part and even loved the script, only to turn it down because of scheduling conflicts. While Gibson may have been good for the role, I’m not sure anyone could have filled Baldwin’s shoes here, and I don’t think anyone would have had the same repartee with Wahlberg.
Then again, the movie may have been much different with Ray Liotta as Dignam, with scheduling conflicts keeping him out of the role. I love the thought of Liotta and Scorsese back together, but Wahlberg is on such a high level that I don’t think even Liotta could have made this film better. In the end, Wahlberg was the only actor nominated for an Oscar in this picture, and it was a much deserved recognition for the former Hip Hop star.
In addition to Scorsese’s win was William Monahan’s for Best Adapted Screenplay, an honor that he easily won in my opinion. Deserving consideration next to David Mamet’s best scripts, this is a catchy, comedic screenplay that is able to transform a lean and mean Hong Kong script and turn it into an epic masterpiece. The dialogue is an incredible mix of laughs and pathos, developing characters that took two more movies to do flesh out in their original films. Other than Martin Scorsese himself, The Departed’s biggest asset was this brilliant piece of work by Monahan, able to take this story from Southeast Asia to South Boston and making it fit like a glove.
Finally, there’s Scorsese himself, in a town alien to him, but making it his home, making us feel as if we know every corner of Boston. The whole experience is so organic; it’s shocking to learn that some of the film wasn’t shot in Beantown, as you’d never know by watching. Some wondered if the movie’s violence would hurt its Oscar chances, but it turns out to be an asset, as he never seems to really make it repugnant in the same way that he did in Goodfellas, Casino, and Raging Bull. Seemingly being able to streamline the violence with the action found in the story’s roots, The Departed is shocking, but not repulsive, showing a bit how Scorsese has learned to adapt and yet still be authentic in his movie making.
By association with Scorsese and his Oscar wins The Departed will go on to be a memorable film from now on, but I think it deserves this distinction regardless. The movie is a wonderful Cops and Crooks saga with A-list performances all around and one of the best scripts of the last two decades. Is it as good as Goodfellas? No, but what is really? With masterful storytelling by one of the greatest directors to ever live, The Departed will be a movie that will go down as one of the most entertaining Oscar winners in history and definitely one of the most violent.
Picture Credits: cinemovies.fr, impawards.com, theage.com
