Dearly Departed...

Ok, how shall I put this politely without offending legions of Scorsese fans and hundreds of movie critics out there? Ermmm, we finally watched The Departed today and it was kinda, hmm... how shall I put this?... Flabby?...

Really, I promise, I tried to be as open-minded about the movie as I could despite my initial gut reaction when I found out that Scorsese had gone and made a remake of Infernal Affairs. Honestly, I tried. Everyone around us- even those who had watched the original- told us that it was a phenomenal movie in and of itself, Entertainment Weekly talked about it as being "urban noir" and Scorsese's return to his gritty, "Mean Streets" visceral form, and the Academy clearly thought it worthy enough for a Best Picture nod.

Okay, I'm sorry, but I think the Academy has made a mistake.

Maybe I'm a naive audience, maybe I don't know enough about American film-making, or maybe I'm just plain biased, but there is no way The Departed matches up to the original; in the immortal words of Jerry Maguire, it wasn't nearly close to being in the same vicinity as matching up to the original. I think it's a weakness of Hollywood film-making in wanting to always demystify things- to talk about things to death and rationalize characters' every act and sentiment. There must be no ambiguity to anything, all must be resolved, and every loose string must be tied up in the end. If you had watched Infernal Affairs, you'd know what I mean.

Infernal Affairs was crisper, tighter, and ironically, even though you knew less about the characters than in The Departed, more human. Tony Leung was anguish personified- a walking paradox of guilt, anger, righteousness and shame. You could really believe that this man may no longer be able to distinguish the line between good and evil. His character was sent into the streets as a mole right when he was a young police cadet- all of 10 years. That's a lot of time to mess up a man if you ask me... And poor Leonardo's character wasn't given that same opportunity by Mr. Scorsese.

And what's with all the extra contrivances? The common love interest (again, the Hollywood machinery at work), the sad childhood baggage, and Mark Wahlberg. I know, he used to Marky Mark, and he's come a long way, but what's with the inexplicable attitude and bad hair? And am I the only one who thinks that when it comes to the movies, Morse code is way cooler than text messaging? Talk about unsubtle film-making...

Most importantly, Infernal Affairs is ultimately the better movie because it didn't have Jack "I-need-to-steal-every-scene-I'm-in-by-sneering-and-being-slimy" Nicholson. Eric Tsang played the mob boss better coz even though he's dimunitive in stature, his controlled, smiling malevolence made him way creepier than Jack Nicholson's over-the-top deranged antics. Sure, Infernal Affairs isn't flawless (admittedly, Vera Farmiga's character was more developed than either of the two female leads in the original), but in my book, it sure came close.

Ok, I know I'm ranting, and I know many of you are going to disagree with me. But I haven't felt this outraged at a remake since Dangerous Liaisons was remade into Cruel Intentions. I'm not a purist, and I don't feel this way about all remakes, some are good, sometimes even better than the original (see Ocean's 11, Cape Fear- see, Scorsese can make a good remake, even The Lake House). Unfortunately, The Departed is just not one of them.

Remakes in general have the deck stacked against them. We know the original, so the new film treads on that iconography. We also know the story, which makes for no new shakes. Worse, in dealing with this, decisions are often made in the effort to "take a twist" on the old film. Dumb and dumb.

The best remakes have often involved a great talent taking on a role that is better suited for them than the original actor. The worst remakes suffer from the delusion that this is true.
-Dileep Rao, The Voices of Reason