I know you are probably sick of reading about The Departed, but I feel compelled to write a thing or two on this movie.
Being that I’ve only seen it once, I can’t tell you if I thought it was better than anything else Martin has made, like I said only one viewing so far. I can say it was good enough that it's stuck in my head and I have the desire to tell people what I think.
Very impressive film, gripping and intriguing and all the rest of those adjectives that builds up his way of mixing violence, attitude and a general bleak perception of society and life. I’m a big fan of MS and was actually fairly nervous to watch this movie. I’ve heard from several that this movie is better than Goodfellas, that it’s better than just about anything he’s made. That’s a tall order in my book, especially in comparison to Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and Gangs Of New York… etc. I got over my fears and dove right into South Boston headfirst.
This movie is brilliantly acted, which should be no surprise. The surprise lies with Mark Whalburg for me. The king asshole of just about any film I’ve seen. He rips through people effortlessly and leaves you with a bad taste and the desire to punch him in the teeth. The kind of guy I’d want to just be around to see what flies out next. DiCaprio comes in a close second. He is definitely getting better with experience and age, and I would go so far as to believe that he might turn out to be one of the great actors of our time. Matt Damon follows close to DiCaprio, very compelling and believable, but for some reason, not as impressive as the fore mentioned. Almost like I expect Matt Damon to fill his role exactly as he did.
Some instances it felt like Nicholson was forcing his accent a little to hard. Don’t get me wrong, he plays one mean bastard, but again I almost expect that from a guy like Nicholson. His reasoning for taking the role was to escape the cloth of a comedic actor apparently; he certainly reproved his ability to be a royal bastard.
I was fairly shocked to hear the list of actors originally sought after for some of the major roles. Mel Gibson, Kate Winslet, Brad Pitt, Gerard McSorley, Dennis Leary. I think it may have been a completely different movie with any of these people. Maybe not Kate Winslet, the character she would have played wasn’t very detrimental to the story.
Only real complaint, like I’ve read before, is the music selection. I will go ahead and say I think the Stones are getting to be excessive. Aside from the obligatory Stones selections, the rest of the music felt a little misplaced. Almost like he got to the end of the movie and realized the only song he thought of during production was the Dropkick Murphys song and had to scramble to fill the void so he just ran to his car and found a mix CD in the glovey and threw it at the editor, “I’m sure this will work”.
Great movie overall, I can certainly give it 5 stars.
I will watch it several more times and it will be a pleasure to do so.