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THE DEPARTED
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"Two fuh the depahted," I said at the Ahlington theatah, and the woman behind me guffawed. "Just getting' inta charactah," I explained.
Inspired by the romantic legend if not the effin' history of Whitey Buljah, the film follows up-and-coming cop Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon, Dogma) and his opposite numbah Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) who goes undahcovah with the mawb to take down that effin' scumbag Frankie Costello (Jack Nicholson, Batman).
There are guys you can hit and guys you can't hit. Now, he's not a guy you can't hit, but he's pretty close to a guy you can't hit.
The beauty of the f bomb [word elided to placate spam
filters], as
Who am I? I'm the guy that does his effin' job. You must be the utha guy.
For such dialog to work, it must crackle -- and this does -- and the actors must deliver it with credible accents. Of the older generation, Ray Winstone (Cold Mountain), Martin Sheen (The Court-Martial of Private Eddie Slovik) both mangle theirs, and Nicholson's comes and goes with grand indifference, like a duchess's belches. Only Noo Yawk's own Alec Baldwin (Married to the Mob) has an utterly believable accent, as he displays at the driving range:
"You know," twank, "you have an immaculate reckud." Twank. "Some guys don't trust an immaculate reckud." Twank. "I do." Twank. "I have an immaculate reckud."
As in The Aviator, DiCaprio is once again miscast. Committed actor though he is, his appearance betrays him. One simply cannot accept him as a powder keg because his features are too petite. He struggles boyfully to look tough and dangerous, but we never believe it, whereas both Dawchestah's Mahk Wahlbug (Boogie Nights) and Cambridge's Damon (Good Will Hunting) effuhtlessly handle both the street cred and the effin' accent.
You got a nice suit at home or do you like comin' to work everyday dressed like you're going' to invade Poland?
Reprising many of his tropes from Goodfellas, director Martin Scorsese (Mean Streets) loves moral equivalence and the convergent evolution of cops and robbers, though in pursuing these goals he takes the principle of dramatic economy to levels of Hardy-esque coincidence. Except for Damon (his generation's Spencer Tracy?), who loses himself in his role, and Wahlberg (his generation's Humphrey Bogart?) who simply is his role, all the other actors are a bit too actorly -- too loquacious, too self-consciously preening. Too many characters speak of acting and pretense -- pretending to be cops, pretending to be snitches, and whenever Sheen or Nicholson speaks, we hear not the character but President Bartlett or the Joker. The plot does not stand a post-denouement retrospective as to motive.
Motive? What kinda effin' pansy talks about motive in an effin' Mahtin Scoasayzee film? It's effin' entatainment. It's absawbing, fast-paced, plausible, witty, suspenseful, an effin' thrill ride from staht to finish, so if you don't think it's green, I'll shoot ya effin' kneecaps.