The Departed is a worthy big-screen drama. Utterly violent, very funny, certainly Boston, The Departed is mostly set in the present, but a few early scenes play in the era just after Bag Men (nice coincidence for me).
The almost parallel characters played by Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio draw you in, and the usual screen dominance of Jack Nicholson doesn’t go too far (although it doesn’t feel new for him). Perhaps the best praise I can give the movie is that I didn’t look at my watch once in 2 hours, 30 minutes. I didn’t anticipate the outcome, really, and yet the surprise wasn’t total, or unbelievable. Pretty impressive, overall.
Metacritic weighs in with a very high 87 — probably deserved. It’s rare that I can give a movie recommendation while it’s still early enough for most people to view in the theaters, but I’d encourage you to see The Departed.
There was a child under the age of 5 at this movie, with her parents. That was unbelievable, and sad in a way. This movie’s violence splashes across the screen repeatedly. Not for children.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Narendra // Oct 15, 2006 at 8:39 pm
I was getting ready to review The Departed as well and it got me thinking about what methodology I would use to review anything. After a bunch of thought, I have settled on 4 stars (4 = classic and requires several viewings, 3 = good to great movie, always entertaining, 2 = entertainment or why we go to the movies and even a bad movie might have some redeeming value like absurdity, 1 = just not worth anyone’s time).
The Departed poses a bit of a problem for me because I have rarely differed in opinion with a movie that is very high on Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes and in this case, I had some issues. Although I was pretty much captivated the entire time, I thought that a bunch of the violence took away from some fabulous acting. For a movie that is based on a film out of Hong Kong, I thought the treatment of the Chinese gang was oddly stereotypical, and finally, the sequence at the end sort of just ruined it for me. I didn’t need a Hollywood ending, I just thought the writers copped out (no pun intended) and it left me flat.
So this should have been a definite 3 stars but it hasn’t sat well and part of my scoring is that if a movie sits between any two levels, I need to round down. Result: 2 stars with some great acting.
I will undoubtedly cut and paste this for my own blog!
2 John Roberts // Oct 16, 2006 at 9:34 pm
You always round down = conservative, but probably the right call in the long run.
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