Review: The Departed
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
See this movie. I don’t care what kind of movie you like. Just see this
OK, If you are squeemish about blood, well, maybe you shouldn’t see this movie.
Spoilers! Below I discuss minor plot elements that you would have to be catatonic to not see a mile ahead. Stuff that Spoiler crazies not unlike myself might still rather not know before seeing a movie.
Leonardo DeCaprio somehow manages to improve his already stellar acting credentials. The slow development of his friendship with his psychiatrist is so subtly and believably expressed that I strongly felt the characters’ connecting. It is a rare quality that a cinematic romance appears not believable, but real. Not just in the romance department, his character is conveyed with great emotional appeal. Usually movie Heros come with cartoon morality, or “jaded worldliness” that seems equally artificial after endless repetition. Here DiCaprio’s character somehow manages to be a beacon for us and yet alive, wounded, human.
Jack Nicholson must have a John Malchovich door into the Devil’s head, because he has spent a career honing his capacity to play the part. In Scorcese’s Gangs of New York we got a villain that seemed human, a dark product of a vicious time. With Jack this time around it is easy to say he is just pure evil, but he is much more impressive a villain than that, because he is also completely real, human, a dark and grimly driven fiend, pitiable in his life’s meaninglessness, frightening in his believability.
Damon’s performance is complicated. He does an incredible job as well, so much so that I had some difficulty separating the actor and the character. Both he and DiCaprio lie for a living, but Damon’s liar lies to protect the wolf that preys on us, and DiCaprio lies to protect us from the wolf. DiCaprio’s character can’t sleep at night from the stress he is under. Damon’s I imagine sleeps the peaceful sleep of the truly lost.