The Departed (2006) (Martin Scorcese)

As darkly comedic and resonant as “Goodfellas” (if they had mobiles and wireless Internet) and as virile and gritty as “Mean Streets”, Scorcese scores a winner by all regards in “The Departed”. And yet the closest description for a story of this magnitude that spans across the generations and multiple complex characters would be “L.A. Confidential”. Rarely does a film work on every level that it aspires to and there’s really not much to say that contradicts it. It’s a potboiler crime fiction of epic proportions with every strand of intersecting plot brimming with rising conflict.

The coarse dialogue, contextual environments and masculine anti-heroes are straight out of Scorcese’s playbook, transposed from mobs to cops. The frissons of being mucked in such a ravenous war zone of conflicting ideals is slowly transformed into a deeper sense of apprehension when it becomes an operatic thriller that closes in on the deception and betrayal between the men caught on the frontlines.

Let me just begin by assuaging fears of a slavish copy of the original as Scorcese, who is arguable the master of the modern gangster genre (including the inspiration for Hong Kong’s wave of gangster films) makes this revision very much his own and all but seals his accolades come award season. The premise and plot structure remain true, but key sequences have been given a new treatment and there are different assertions and idiosyncrasies in the characters which are created by their respective actors.

It’s a welcome difference in the locale from Hong Kong to Boston. It allows for more elaborate setpieces with clever use of racial prejudices and homophobia in the language that adds another dimension to the politics involved. And of course a much more vibrant Boston landscape in the film’s brooding atmosphere that plays a bigger part in the film’s scope with its flagrant bending of time and space. And as usual, one actor stands out playing his role the way audiences have always recognised him. He brings a crucial, unrestrained element to his larger-than-life character that one might suspect is unseen in the script.

Nicholson’s Costello is an expanded takeoff from Eric Tsang’s supremely underdeveloped but scene-stealing role as the mob boss Sam in “Infernal Affairs”, just one of Scorcese’s prerogatives that was undertaken with the glut of talented performers he was presented with. Nicholson forces himself into the foreground with yet another of his quintessential performances that borders somewhere between paranoia, rage and aloofness. But Scorcese burdens the film’s strongest scenes by placing Nicholson in the centre stage, letting him pull the emotional strings with nervy self-reliance by sheer presence alone. Of course, this can be a masterstroke at times, but an overdose of Jack can betray a scene’s natural gravitas.

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