Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Departed
The Departed wouldn't be as big a disappointment if it were by another director. Martin Scorsese has built so much credibility — his public self is so warm and shy, so many of his movies admirable — you start by rooting for him. Scorsese must have thought he was making a Boston Irish Mean Streets when really he was stringing together stylish highly charged violent segments in a disjointed and soulless story. It is as though Tarantino's crude slickly wrought movies had issued a siren call bemusing Scorsese's better self — the lesser influencing the greater.
Years ago Pauline Kael knocked King of Comedy for having a sympathetic character steal an ashtray — a gratuitous dissing of the character. The Departed is a whole movie with that problem: a cold, humorless (but for Nicholson's witty performance) contraption. For Scorsese the simple icy pleasures of technique are now more engaging than the mysteries of the heart.