I recently saw The Departed on Saturday, October 28 using one of my free movie tickets. Since I don’t see movies in theaters all that often, I will try to post my reviews of the movies that I do see. First up is The Departed, a gritty good vs. bad flick starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. The movie is based on the highly acclaimed Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, which starred Tony Leung and Andy Lau. I will mention up front that I had already seen Infernal Affairs (but not IA2 or IA3). Although I am not one of the many IA freaks out there, I do believe that it soured my reception of The Departed. Could it be because there was a distinct lack of Asians in the film (I’ll admit that there were a few, but they looked like idiots)? Maybe…probably. On to the review!
Lies. Betrayal. Sacrifice. How far will you take it?
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Plot via IMDb: Years ago, a powerful Irish mafia figure placed a small selection of his youngest, brightest men into the Massachusetts Police Academy as cadets. Their purpose is to eventually rise within the prestigious ranks of the city’s police department to serve as the eyes and ears of their boss. While somewhere else, a young cadet was assigned with an equally dangerous task: infiltrate the Irish syndicate headed by the man sending in his own to the Boston Police. Now, one cadet is an up and coming police official with a torn allegiance to his job and to the criminal mastermind that put him there. While the other cadet is the trusted number two of that man, only finding his professional duties are becoming blurred with his current state. But new clues have lead to unfortunate discoveries, when both sides realize they’re being watched by the enemy. It’s now all just a matter of time before the men, assigned to find out who’s the infiltrator, could come to a bloody end when someone’s identity may be revealed.
My Thoughts: Pretty good movie despite the fact that I’d already experienced the story. The original story was good and so was this one. No major plot changes. Just different ways of presenting the same core story. The first thing you will notice while watching the movie is everyone’s fake “Bah-stin” accents. No offense to some of you out there but the Boston is accent is one of the worst accents in America–surpassed only by the Southern accent. But I digress. Another thing that annoyed me was the excessive swearing (IMDb mentions the f-word is mentioned 200+ times…yikes!). Yes, the movie is rated R, but so was The Matrix, which barely had any foul language. Combined with the splatters of blood after every gunshot, this isn’t really the movie to bring the kiddies to. I did, however, see more than a few mini kids at the theater for some reason. There were also a few instances of sudden sounds (gunshots) that were completely unnecessary. Look out for this at the end. The crowd literally gasped.
Grade: B+
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The next review I will be posting will be on The Prestige, which I just saw on Sunday, October 29. To my regular readers, look forward to that! For those of you who have seen both The Departed and Infernal Affairs…what did you think?
I recently saw The Departed on Saturday, October 28 using one of my free movie tickets. Since I don’t see movies in theaters all that often, I will try to post my reviews of the movies that I do see. First up is The Departed, a gritty good vs. bad flick starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. The movie is based on the highly acclaimed Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, which starred Tony Leung and Andy Lau. I will mention up front that I had already seen Infernal Affairs (but not IA2 or IA3). Although I am not one of the many IA freaks out there, I do believe that it soured my reception of The Departed. Could it be because there was a distinct lack of Asians in the film (I’ll admit that there were a few, but they looked like idiots)? Maybe…probably. On to the review!
Very nice movie. I enjoyed watching it. I give it 8/10.