The Departed
Oddly enough there were large portions of this movie that reminded me of The Last King of Scotland. DiCaprio plays a cop who goes undercover and gets deep into the mafia while Damon plays the opposite, a made man who has infiltrated the Boston police. It is DiCaprio's character, Billy Costigan and his relationship with Frank Costello played by Jack Nicholson that reminded me so much of Last King. Being in a very close relationship with an unstable, diabolical and powerful man but pretending the entire time, hoping not to be found out. The stress is intense. Unlike Last King, The Departed makes no attempt whatsoever at giving you a redemptive resolution. In this world of crooked cops and mafia bosses murder and betrayal is on par for the course and a happy resolution to this film would have seemed out of place, even though we long for it the whole time.
As a side note, Mark Wahlberg has been nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor... not to take anything away from Wahlberg or his performance, I am afterall becoming a bigger fan of his work every year... but seriously? His role in the Departed is so small, I think he's on screen for 10 minutes max and we don't get much from him other than a smart-ass angry cop, its not really a breakthrough performance or something we haven't seen from him already. Okay... I've just seen way better work from Wahlberg, what about DiCaprio for his portryal of Costigan (or would he be the main actor?)? Anyway that just caught me a bit off guard.
Labels: Film
posted by Charlie at 9:20 PM
2 Comments:
Charlie, I know you've seen it, but I reccomend "Mystic River" over this film. The movie was quite good, but seemed like a cop version of "Mystic River" to me. DiCaprio was great. I've been saying this for a long time, and it used to get me a lot of flack, but I believe he's one of the best actors out there. I can't think of a movie he's been in that isn't either great, or he single-handedly saves the film.
I thought Mystic River was incredible. Maybe Departed felt like the cop version of Mystic River (but weren't there also cops and mobsters in MR too?) because of the bloody and unresolved ending. Good thing we can enjoy both films at the same time eh?
About DiCaprio, we are agreed, he's a great actor. I thought his work in Departed was even better than in Blood Diamond.
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