Bumpy Departure.


As far as remakes go, The Departed, Martin Scorsese’s sprawling, overstuffed Boston-area reinterpretation of Andy Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs, is by no means an embarrassment. Packed with likable actors delivering quality performances (another hambone turn by Jack Nicholson notwithstanding), it’s a breezy and enjoyable two and a half hours of cinema, and it hits most of the beats of the original decently well. (Maybe too well. A little more deviation from IA might’ve helped in the suspense department.) Still, I left the theater somewhat disappointed, and am a bit surprised by the critical acclaim Departed is getting. For all the sleek direction, actorly firepower, and Mamet-ish wit on display here can’t disguise the fact that Infernal Affairs was a clearly better film — leaner and more nuanced, more elegiac and resonant. Lacking the emotional power of the original, The Departed basically just feels like a well-crafted but hollow genre exercise (that is, when it doesn’t feel like a Nicholson stunt.) And, as far as well-crafted genre exercises go, I think I might’ve preferred Inside Man.

The central plot of both films is at once delightfully simple — cop plays robber, robber plays cop — and devilishly complicated. Here, two Southie graduates of the Massachusetts State Police Academy go to work for opposite sides of the law: Bright young overachiever Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) takes a gig in a top police investigation unit aimed at taking down nefarious crime kingpin Frank Costello (a.k.a. Whitey Bulger a.k.a. The Joker), while troubled screw-up Billy Costigan (Leonardo di Caprio) finds himself, after a stint in the joint, hired muscle in Costello’s organization. But all is not as it seems: As it turns out, Sullivan the cop — bought off by a bag of groceries a few decades earlier — actually works for Costello as a mole on the force, while Costigan the robber has gone deep undercover at the behest of BPD detectives Queenan (Martin Sheen, avuncular and presidential) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg, aggro and amusing). As it becomes patently clear to both sides of the game that each has a rat in the house, Sullivan and Costello work to flush out their opposite before they get busted (or, in Costello’s case, dismembered.) And, complicating the situation even further (and in a departure from Infernal Affairs), these two nemeses also unknowingly share the love of the same woman, an alluring police shrink (Vera Farmiga) who tends to make really poor life decisions.

All of this is executed competently enough. Scorsese keeps the wheels turning and the tension up throughout, and The Departed benefits from many excellent performances around the margins: Both Wahlberg (easily the most comfortable with the Boston accent, for obvious reasons) and particularly Alec Baldwin (as a grizzled police detective, one-half his character in Glengarry Glen Ross, one-half Sgt. Jay Landsman) are laugh-out loud funny at times, while David O’Hara and Sexy Beast‘s Ray Winstone add sinister depths to Costello’s criminal outfit. And, while most of Mystic River felt more plausible to me, the Boston locale gives The Departed some strong local color that feels fresh and different from the Hong Kong of Internal Affairs. (I particularly liked some of the Irish witticisms. I’d never heard the Freud quote: “This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.” And I enjoyed Sullivan’s warning to his psychiatrist girlfriend late in the film, something along the lines of “If this isn’t working, you need to get out. I’m Irish. Something could be wrong, and I’d spend the rest of my life just dealing with it.“)

Both Leonardo di Caprio and Matt Damon do high-quality work too, but here some of my issues with the film emerge. As played by the charismatic Tony Leung of Hero, In the Mood for Love, and 2046, the undercover cop character in Internal Affairs is a resigned, world-weary sort, a guy who seems to carry reservoirs of inexpressible sorrow with him everywhere he goes. But, here, di Caprio is basically a pill-popping panic attack for two hours, cringing and sweating his way through every scene. Fine, that’s a stylistic choice: More problematic is Damon’s character, who’s become considerably less interesting than the conflicted cop played by Andy Lau (of House of Flying Daggers) in the original. For some reason, he’s been stripped down and rendered a much more conventional villain. Damon does what he can, but I preferred the subtler, more pained motivations of Lau’s mole than I do the unctuous, take-no-prisoners careerism they’ve saddled Damon with here.

And then there’s Jack. Nicholson has put in some extraordinary performances in his time, but, as someone put it in another comment thread, he’s been coasting like Pacino for a couple of decades now. And, for some ungodly reason, Scorsese gave Nicholson free rein here to act as crazy as he wants. (Yep, the dildo idea was his.) As a result, Nicholson can’t stop leering and preening to the point of distraction. Whether it be making rat faces, covering his arms in splatterhouse gore, coking out with two prostitutes in the Red Room from Twin Peaks, or generally just acting like he’s seated courtside at the Staples Center rather than running a crime operation, Nicholson just doesn’t work here. Wildly over the top throughout, he’s like a refugee from a sillier, stupider film, and he too often makes The Departed feel little more than a Marty-directs-Jack! casting stunt.

Ye men of blood.

Online of late is the new trailer for Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (a.k.a. the remake of Infernal Affairs, with Tony Leung and Andy Lau), starring Leonardo diCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin. I liked the original quite a bit, but I get the sense from this preview that this version may be marred somewhat by the usual late-era Nicholson grandstanding.

Leo Rex.

Looks like Spielberg and Neeson’s Lincoln may have started a welcome trend. Trading in the aviator glasses for pince-nez, Leonardo di Caprio will apparently star as TR in Martin Scorsese’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, based on the Edmund Morris biography. Hmm…I can see that, provided the film doesn’t carry too far into the presidential years. Bully for him.

Blood, sweat, and dust.

In the trailer bin, Philip Seymour Hoffman channels In Cold Blood-era Truman Capote — I presume that’s how he actually sounded — in the preview for Capote, also with Catherine Keener and Chris Cooper. Elsewhere, 1880s Aussie Guy Pearce gets an offer he probably should refuse in The Proposition, written by Nick Cave and also starring Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Danny Houston, David Wenham, and Emily Watson. Finally, I should’ve posted this before, but only now found it: the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s Dylan-doc No Direction Home, appearing on PBS Sept. 26th and 27th.

Oscar 2005.

Hmmm…strange how the T2 score became the new Oscar theme. At any rate, Jamie Foxx and Cate Blanchett notwithstanding, it looks to have been a Million Dollar evening…and Marty went home Oscarless again. (Pickwise, I did rather poorly.) Ah well, at least Chris Rock was funny and Charlie Kaufman won for Eternal Sunshine. In my own personal Oscars, it racked up.

Boo Hiss.

Y’know, after RotK‘s commanding sweep last year, I’d almost forgotten about Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, The English Patient, and all the myriad ways Oscar tends to be generally lame. But today’s nominations brought it all roaring back.

No Eternal Sunshine for best picture? That’s the most egregious snub since Three Kings, Being John Malkovich and Fight Club were all overlooked in favor of the much-overhyped American Beauty (to say nothing of ghastly drek like The Cider House Rules and The Green Mile.) Neither Jim Carrey nor Paul Giamatti for Best Actor? Giamatti’s snub is particularly cruel, given that both Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen were nominated. Clive Owen and Natalie Portman? I think highly of them both, but as I said of the Globes, Closer was a lousy, over-the-top flick that confused explicit talk for serious purpose, and has no business being up for anything. (The same might be said of Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland — Depp rarely gives a bad performance, but, from what I gather, Neverland is a rote, by-the-numbers biopic. I haven’t seen it, though.)

To be honest, these choices generate zero excitement on this end (even if there’s a very outside chance I win a Soctopus that evening.) But, for tradition’s sake…

Best Picture: It’ll come down to The Aviator or Sideways, and my bet is this is the year the Academy honors Scorsese (partly for making Old Hollywood look so glamorous.)

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator. See above. It’s Scorsese’s year…and that’ll be the lead for the evening.

Best Actor: Leonardo di Caprio, The Aviator. I could see Don Cheadle winning here, but, when in doubt, pick the actor playing the crazy and/or mentally deficient guy. (Jack Nicholson/As Good as it Gets, Geoffrey Rush/Shine, Tom Hanks/Forrest Gump, Anthony Hopkins/Silence of the Lambs, Dustin Hoffman/Rain Man, etc. etc.) I need to see the blueprints…

Best Actress: Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine. Besides being an Oscar darling, she’s helped by the fact that the movie got screwed in all the other categories. (Kinda like how the Moulin Rouge enthusiasts put Jim Broadbent over-the-top for Iris.)

Best Supporting Actor: Alan Alda, The Aviator. (This could just as easily have Alec Baldwin in the same film.) You could make a strong case for Jamie Foxx in Collateral, but I’m guessing his vote splits between here and Ray. Plus, Alda best fits the elder statesman role that generally wins these (Michael Caine/The Cider House Rules, James Coburn/Affliction, Martin Landau/Ed Wood, Gene Hackman/Unforgiven, Jack Palance/City Slickers.)

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator. This category can surprise, and Virginia Madsen and Natalie Portman are her closest competitors. But I figure the gist will be that Madsen should be happy to be nominated and Portman was a good performance in a bad film. (That being said, Portman’s role as a stripper is exactly the type of thing that often wins in this category — see: Kim Basinger/L.A. Confidential, Mira Sorvino/Mighty Aphrodite.)

Best Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine. The fan-favorite movie that the Academy feels bad for not quite “getting” generally goes here (Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Lost in Translation), and Eternal Sunshine will be no exception.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sideways. I could see Before Sunset winning here, possibly. Still, I’ll say Sideways as recompense for the Giamatti snub.

Best Animated Feature: The Incredibles. No contest.

Going Back to the Well.

In the Bad Idea film bin today, De Niro and Scorsese contemplate a Taxi Driver 2, Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs becomes a TV series, and Joel Schumacher is currently hard at work creating a “10th Anniversary Extended Director’s Cut” of Batman & Robin. Oof…is that really necessary?

Dark Globe.

A weekend of playoff football (ugh, so close, Jets) has fed into the Golden Globe awards which, I must say, have been pretty disappointing this year. I root for both Clive Owen and Natalie Portman in general, but Closer was a lousy film, and I would have much preferred to see some love for Eternal Sunshine at some point in the evening, even if Sideways and The Aviator are deserving in their own way. (I have yet to see Million Dollar Baby or Ray, but would be very surprised if they turned out better than Charlie Kaufman’s magnum opus.) Ah well, perhaps this’ll help Jim Carrey beat the Golden Globe curse.

Kid Icarus.


Chock-full of period glamour and notable performances, Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator is breezier and better than the last Marty-Leo outing — it seems both lighter of foot and more self-assured (and, for that matter, more historically accurate) than the plodding, heavy-handed Gangs of New York. That being said, I did find myself wishing at various points in the second and third hours that Scorsese had taken a page from Howard Hughes and found a way to get from TWA to OCD more quickly. Well worth seeing and consistently entertaining, The Aviator is also (like many Scorsese films) probably 15-20 minutes too long.

Arguably the goofiest scene in the film is in the opening moments, as we see the child Hughes being bathed by his mother and forced to spell Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E…it plays like exactly the same type of ham-handed Freudian shorthand that so marred Alexander a couple of weeks ago. But, soon thereafter, the movie jumps to 1927 and the set of Hell’s Angels, and The Aviator settles into cruising altitude. Watching Hughes indulge his passions for fast planes and starlets against a backdrop of New Era glitz is great fun…at times, the movie even feels like Oceans’ One or Two, with Jean Harlow, Kate Hepburn, Errol Flynn, and Ava Gardner all holding court in Old Hollywood.

Only later in the film, when the madness begins to come upon Hughes and the interminable handwashing begins, does one start to feel the drag. I found myself looking at my watch long before Hughes begins finding unsavory uses for milk bottles. Still, despite the turbulence, The Aviator is kept aloft through the compulsive years by a number of solid performances, including (but not limited to) Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner (Surprisingly after drek like Van Helsing and Underworld, she’s pretty good here), Matt Ross as Hughes’ long-suffering aeronautics #2 Glenn Odekirk, Alec Baldwin as Pan Am head/Hughes rival Juan Trippe, and Alan Alda as the unctuous anti-Hawkeye, Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster. (di Caprio, for his part, is excellent throughout.) And, flying head and shoulders above them all is Cate Blanchett’s uncanny turn as young Katherine Hepburn. Alive, acerbic, and adorable, Blanchett’s Hepburn walks away with every scene she’s in, and the film misses her dearly after her second act exit. (Damn you, Tracy.) With a gal like Cate’s Kate by his side, it’s little wonder Hughes found a way, however briefly, to soar amongst the clouds.