Scorsese scores again

Martin Scorsese's latest masterpiece 'The Departed' maintains its intoxicating, yet steady pace from beginning to end, and is laden with plot twists and surprises that keep you riveted even a couple of minutes into the credits.

I hardly noticed that The Departed was almost two and a half hours long. The film, unanimously touted as Martin Scorsese's latest masterpiece after the mixed reviews of his previous recent projects and branded a "must see" by film critics all over, maintains its intoxicating, yet steady pace from beginning to end, and is laden with plot twists and surprises that keep you riveted even a couple of minutes into the credits. I for sure sat there a while, my mouth hanging open, taking in the last couple of scenes.

Based on Infernal Affairs, a 2002 Hong Kong cult favorite, The Departed is set in South Boston, where the Irish mob rules. Their big boss is Frank Costello (played to the perfection by Jack Nicholson), who had taken a young Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) under his wing. Sullivan graduates from the police academy and is hired by Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and his right-hand man Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), to join a special unit of the Boston State Police. Sullivan becomes a valuable mole for Costello, tipping him off about surveillances and raids. Unknown to Sullivan, Queenan and Dignam also persuades Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), another young recruit with the right, er, family background, to infiltrate Costello's mob ring as a police mole.

Sullivan, an apparent rising star in the force, is doing more than well balancing his two jobs (as cop and rat) when Costello starts to exert pressure on him when the mob boss suspects he has a rat among his crew. Meanwhile, Costigan starts to buckle under the day-to-day stress of pretending to be a mobster, even as he also realizes that Costello has a well-placed tipster in the police force. Investigations and counter-investigations ensue in an attempt to smoke out both rats, and things become even more interesting when Sullivan is handed the responsibility to "find himself."

An added boost to the movie's tension is when both Sullivan and Costigan unknowingly find themselves in a love triangle with a police psychiatrist (Vera Farmiga). That they don't ever find out about this wipes away any trace of the contrived feel of this little subplot.

It must be the Scorsese effect, but the whole cast (and this film is the most star-studded I've seen recently) turns out a great performance. Alec Baldwin and Sheen excel, even in their supporting roles. Wahlberg is just superb as his irreverent, hilarious, and combustible character, which, I think, is easily the most memorable, though definitely not the only well-portrayed, in the film. Damon is both eerie and intense. And, to borrow police psychiatrist Madolyn's words, DiCaprio's vulnerability in this film, "just freaks me out." I've always known DiCaprio to be an actor with great emotional depth, but I don't think I've ever seen him quite like this in any of his critically-acclaimed films. I wouldn't be surprised if any of the above get some Oscar nods.

What I love about The Departed is that it satisfies both the blood-thirsty movie-goer in me that just wants to see some dead bodies, and the more mature viewer in me that enjoys sophisticated story-telling and techniques. Even as it raises the body count, the movie presents us with yet another interesting Boston-set story (the last that really made an impact on me was Clint Eastwood's Mystic River) that captures yet another facet of American life-the Irish-Catholic one, which gave it a sense of familiarity to viewers like me who doesn't really get the Boston vibe, being that we're more exposed to Hollywood's beach-and-bodies California.

I hope one day I'd get to see a mainstream Filipino film as smart and yet as entertaining as The Departed. Fancy that-an action-suspense-thriller local movie that actually tells a real story and gets us thinking, too, for a change. Not another of those "Oo, kamagong sila, pero saging kami na may puso" flicks.

Email comments to [email protected]. You may also post them at http://channelsurfing-freeman.blogspot.com