Martin Scorcese's "The Departed," which opened this week to the usual hoopla, starring Leo DeCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and others, might better have been called "Boston Rats," because that's what it's about, Boston cops and robbers, of whom all the leading characters in this film are Rats.
Let's say that in America's big cities there are at least two groups of problem children, criminal gangs and certain cops, local, state and federal. The gangs like to know what's going on, so they keep tabs on the police. The police like to know what's going on, so they keep tabs on the gangs. Because each must necessarily deal with the other, there's a certain amount of overlap, as cops give licenses to steal to informants, and informants use cops to stay out of jail. Herein lies the makings of a morality play as the cops get muddied by the bad guys, and the bad guys play one agency off against the other.
You would think that this is a can't miss great story, but not in this unsatisfying movie, where there's more bad going around to make up for the lack of any good whatsoever. A movie with all bad guys, and no good guys, is a bit one-sided.
We like to think that some good comes out of our having invested close to three hours hoping to gain some new insight on how the world of criminal justice works. But when you never leave the back alleys and abandoned warehouses, and leave the justice to the rats, you don't see anything that resembles justice as we know it. These groups certainly have no monopoly on it and we never get any input from the other components of society who have something to say about justice, such as the public, the press, and the legal types.
Rat justice is no justice. That must be the moral of this film.
"The Departed" is a well-acted, well-directed, well-technologied (lots of clever use of cell-phones to provide clues) disappointment.
What did I get out of this? I wondered.
I'll let you know when, and if, I find out.
What was Scorcese's point in devoting his considerable craft in telling this story? That he can put asses in seats given a big budget and a cartload of stars? He's succeeded in this, directing a grand shoot'emup with production values. There must be more to da movies than this.
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