It appears that in his old age Martin Scorsese, one of the great American directors of the 20th century, has gone soft. While The Departed, Scorsese’s most recent film, is certainly gory and profane, it’s also disappointingly simple-minded, straight-forward and, well, average. Coming from a young Hollywood director, this film might be cause for excitement; coming from a master like Scorsese, it just highlights the widening gap between what the man was once capable of and what he does now.
The film, a remake of the excellent 2002 Hong Kong action flick Infernal Affairs, is all about duplicity and identity. Crazed mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) has infiltrated the Boston police bureau investigating him, using up-and-coming cop Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) as his mole. The police are doing the same to Costello, setting up Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) as their man on the inside. The story boils down to the constantly shifting cat-and-mouse game that develops as Costigan and Sullivan attempt to determine each other’s identity while hiding their own from everyone else.
The story works best as an examination of the psychology of crime and punishment. Both Sullivan and Costigan are tortured men, forced to live as people they aren’t and betray all of those around them. The line between right and wrong isn’t just blurry for these two—it may not even exist. Damon is able to display some of the menace and cold opportunism he portrayed so well in The Talented Mr. Ripley, although the performance becomes stale after the first hour. DiCaprio’s anguish and anger are believable, though his performance never has the depth of Tony Leung’s, who had his role in the original. Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone all put in good turns in supporting roles, and Mark Wahlberg is especially enjoyable hamming it up as the hilariously foul-mouthed Detective Dignam.
The film goes terribly wrong, however, with Jack Nicholson. Nicholson has become so adept at playing himself that he is now either unable or unwilling to play anyone else. His Costello is barely a character so much as it is a series of clichés, pranks and leftover bits from previous Nicholson roles. Eric Tsang’s malevolent crime-boss in Infernal Affairs was all cool swagger and menace; Nicholas’ Costello just comes off as ludicrous and ill-conceived. The number of extraneous scenes that exist solely for Nicholson to goof around in is astounding. At two-and-a-half hours long, there’s at least a half-hour of fat that could be cut to improve the film, and most of it comes courtesy of the crazy old codger.
Of course, much of the fault for this lies with Scorsese. His direction here is lazy and ham-fisted, the pacing is dreadful and he seems to have no idea where to go with the story. He bulldozes over all the subtlety of Internal Affairs and even introduces a new ending which seems to reveal a near-total misunderstanding of the greater moral implications of the original. Beyond this, his use of violence here seems more hollow than ever. In his early work, the bloodshed, which was often massive, at least served to further the plot or was a justified part of charcter development. The same can’t be said here. After the first few bullet-to-brain interactions or severed extremities, you wonder why the scenes even made the final cut. And, while the violence is all clearly laid out, Scorsese seems downright prudish when it comes to sex.
Over the last decade, Scorsese has been coasting. Bringing Out the Dead, Gangs of New York and The Aviator have all been passable films, but none have compared to the hunger and righteous fury of Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, or Goodfellas. He’s still working with great actors and they are, for the most part, still providing great performances, but he no longer seems able to mold them into great films. The Departed may be, on the whole, better than most of his recent films, but it still falls well short of what he is capable. Or at least, was capable.
