The Departed Discussion (Spoilers)

TheManWithoutFear

#1 reason not to join UC
Joined
Nov 30, 2004
Messages
16,716
Location
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Out of all of the crappy movies some of the members post about on this site...

No one's started a thread about the almighty The Departed?

Just my two cents because I just really wanted to vent here...

This movie's been dubbed as one of the greatest films of all time (I'm serious) by some people. I couldn't stop hearing about it. I was pretty anxious to see it and I got the chance to last night.

Now I'm pissed. Let me put this in terms that Ultimate Central fans can relate too. If you love shock reveals in the "OMG KFSIAFSHLK!!!!" fashion (i.e. Ultimate Spider-Man: Clone Saga), you will love this movie.

The acting was awesome. And it should be. Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin. Now you'd think when these guys get together there's nothing serious to come out of it. Yet, while all of the sarcasm used by Wahlberg, Baldwin, and Nicholson are present, their acting brilliantly helps characterize some of the best acting that I've ever come across. So yeah, for the first 90% of the movie I'm really digging it.

Then we have to throw in the twists. Now all I heard about the film was it was a great film about Organized Crime (Irish even) and that I'd never guess the twist ending.

Well, no ****.

Out of nowhere comic relief guy pulls out a gun and shoots the good guy because he was in on it the entire time. You never have any hints about it, you never see it coming. So of course I wouldn't be able to see the ending coming. They took some random element just to make us think we're stupid and couldn't see what was happening.

Why? I like watching movies and being had and took. I like finding out I missed something along the way but this was just cheap.

Lucky Number Slevin was genius. This was not.

P.S. I know it was a remake of a chinese film. I heard they used the same techique so they're more guilty than the American version.

I'm pissed.


Another thing, Organized Crime figures don't deal with international terrorists. Now I'm not sure if Costello actually was an informant and maybe I missed the part where it said the F.B.I. caught the Koreans but if the Koreans did, in fact, get away with those chips because of a deal they struck with the Irish Mob, it's totally out of character. Especially post 9/11.

3.5/5 and overhyped
 
Re: The Departed Disucssion (Spoilers)

Finally.

I thought that everyone besides me wanted to have this movies babies. While I enjoyed it, it wasn't the "ZOMG BESSTT m00VEE EVA!!!!11" that pretty much everyone made it out to be.

Again, I thought it was very well done, and would probably rate it higher than MWF, but it's pretty far away from being my favorite movie.
 
Last edited:
Another thing, Organized Crime figures don't deal with international terrorists. Now I'm not sure if Costello actually was an informant and maybe I missed the part where it said the F.B.I. caught the Koreans but if the Koreans did, in fact, get away with those chips because of a deal they struck with the Irish Mob, it's totally out of character. Especially post 9/11.

3.5/5 and overhyped

its when they confront Jack, after the deal and they ask him what he did with the real chips, since the dudes got busted with the fake ones.

i liked it, im not a Decrap'o fan, but it worked out better in the end. only thing is it felt rushed at the end. another 10 mins. to explain how things were gonna go down would'a been great. like what the girl did with the package or that she opened it. or something.
 
Last edited:
I liked the movie, but like MWOF said it was because of the acting. Yeah, the ending wasn't foreshadowed, but I'd rather have that than an ending I could guess half an hour before it happens.

Actually, now that I think about it didn't Jack Nicholson mention to Matt Damon that Damon wasn't the only mole in the cops?
 
I really liked the movie, don't get me wrong. But I was waiting for the twist, surprise ending and for me it never came. I mean, everybody's roles were layed out in the beginning and they never altered. I was expecting a twist, like Leo or Damon were playing the side they were supposedly on, but it never happened. And Wahlberg killing Damon at the end isn't really a twist at all either. I mean, it was fine that he did it, his character new Damon was rotten and it made sense. But it wasn't shocking. The only surprising scene was the elevator scene.
 
Just my two cents because I just really wanted to vent here...

This movie's been dubbed as one of the greatest films of all time (I'm serious) by some people. I couldn't stop hearing about it. I was pretty anxious to see it and I got the chance to last night.

Now I'm pissed. Let me put this in terms that Ultimate Central fans can relate too. If you love shock reveals in the "OMG KFSIAFSHLK!!!!" fashion (i.e. Ultimate Spider-Man: Clone Saga), you will love this movie.

The acting was awesome. And it should be. Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin. Now you'd think when these guys get together there's nothing serious to come out of it. Yet, while all of the sarcasm used by Wahlberg, Baldwin, and Nicholson are present, their acting brilliantly helps characterize some of the best acting that I've ever come across. So yeah, for the first 90% of the movie I'm really digging it.

Then we have to throw in the twists. Now all I heard about the film was it was a great film about Organized Crime (Irish even) and that I'd never guess the twist ending.

Well, no ****.

Out of nowhere comic relief guy pulls out a gun and shoots the good guy because he was in on it the entire time. You never have any hints about it, you never see it coming. So of course I wouldn't be able to see the ending coming. They took some random element just to make us think we're stupid and couldn't see what was happening.

Why? I like watching movies and being had and took. I like finding out I missed something along the way but this was just cheap.

Lucky Number Slevin was genius. This was not.

P.S. I know it was a remake of a chinese film. I heard they used the same techique so they're more guilty than the American version.

I'm pissed.


Another thing, Organized Crime figures don't deal with international terrorists. Now I'm not sure if Costello actually was an informant and maybe I missed the part where it said the F.B.I. caught the Koreans but if the Koreans did, in fact, get away with those chips because of a deal they struck with the Irish Mob, it's totally out of character. Especially post 9/11.

3.5/5 and overhyped

MWoF, I have never, ever agreed more with anything you've said. I just saw it on Saturday and said pretty much all the same things you did afterwards.
 
...

I tried to think up an intelligent rebuttal but my brain defaulted on your thinking that "Lucky Number Slevin" was genius and could not properly function after that... That movie was fun... It surprised me and it was a pretty good movie, but it anything but different. It utilized cliches in a way that mage the movie interesting, but I feel like it could have been constructed better. The characters were shallow, fun, but shallow, and if you were paying attention you could call the ending from halfway through the movie.


Now I'm a scorsese fan, I like the way he structures his movies... I also think that it's important to remember that this is based off of Infernal Affairs... People are always quick to blame story choices on a director when the blame usually lies in the source material. When Scorsese directs, he paints character pictures, and that is where his strength is... But then the actors get the credit for doing a great job and Scorsese gets snubbed from the oscar.

As a Plot-piece, I'll agree its a bit lacking, but im pretty sure a lot of that can be traced back to the source material...

As a Character-piece, I think the film was brilliant. Dicaprio is doing his best work under scorsese, and Jack Nicholson pulled off one hell of a performance... I liked all the characters, all the way through the film, and I don't see why you though Wahlberg was a comic relief character... I found him three-dimensional all the way through (his character becomes the lead in the Japanese Infernal Affairs 2 & 3)...

Now maybe comprehensive character pieces that speak about a type of person in a place in time, like this movie does for blue-collar irish in Boston, like Goodfellas did for the mob in Brooklyn, and what The Aviator did for the 30's and 40's in high class America, isn't exactly your cup of tea, but this movie is one of the best movies of last year, and exists far and beyond what Lucky Number Slevin tried to be.

But you are WAY out of line comparing it to the Clone Saga. Way Way Way out of line. The ending was a little unexpected, but not as out of nowhere as you're trying to paint it.

I'm looking forward to getting it on DVD (ordered it already) so I can do a comprehensive review... I've been watching movies compulsively, building up my background like I used to do with comics, so I can compare and contrast and not base my oppinions off of rave reviews... I'm hoping to get a job reviewing these babies soon enough, and so far I've watched thirty-nine films in the last twenty days and am going to keep working my way through my ever-expanding list of movies I need to see... but that's aside the point. I'll try to do a better job shutting your points down once i've seen it again.

Sorry for being a bit of a film snob... but yeah...

Anybody on my side?
 
Anybody on my side?

I think for the most part, yeah, and I think most people would be. I think the big argument in this thread is with the presupposed twist ending we were promised and which never really materialized.

It was a good movie, I had a good time watching it, I just expected more after all the surprise twist hype. It isn't the film's fault, as I found the film to be nearly flawless on its own. But it was there nonetheless and totally affects the movie watching experience.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top