HOME |
DINING |
MOVIES |
LIVE SHOWS |
ARTS |
UPCOMING EVENTS
ARCHIVES |
ABOUT |
ADVERTISE |
CONTACT |
DISTRIBUTION
entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
<< The Turning (movie review)
|
Main
|
The Proposition (DVD review)
>>
|
|
by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A Rated R 149 min
Martin Scorsese returned to his gritty Mean Streets (1973) roots with his remake of a 2002 Hong Kong film Wu jian dao. Set in present day Boston where the Massachusetts State Police formed an organized crime task force to bring down an Irish-American crime gang headed by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). This script, adapted by Alan Mak from Felix Chong’s original screenplay inspired Scorsese to recreate a hardcore crime scenario that years ago launched his directorial career.
The heart of the story involves a mole inside the State Police task force, Colin Sullivan, (Matt Damon) who is feeding information to Costello so he can avoid getting pinched. On the other hand, the State Police place an undercover agent, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DeCarprio) inside Costello’s organization to inform on the kingpin. Uniting the two moles are their tough backgrounds as Southies (South Chicago residents) and their love of a police shrink, Gwen (Kristen Dalton).
The story is character driven, allowing the viewer to understand the deeper motivations of both moles, who coincidently, have much in common. Kristen Dalton deftly portrays the pivotal psychiatrist character, Gwen who is, at first, infatuated with Colin, then she meets Billy and falls for his vulnerability. So she is juggling two men with similar backgrounds who have vague knowledge of each other. Colin suspects there is a rat inside Costello’s group, and initiates measures to find him. It becomes a high stakes game of two moles finding each other. To confuse matters further, Colin is put in charge of finding the mole inside the State Police task force. So, he invents a ruse to take the suspicion off him.
Jack Nicholson created one of his most memorable characters with his characterization of Frank Costello. Nicholson realizes that by now, any character he portrays will have certain self parody aspects to him that will wax funny. So he uses that typecast to embellish Costello with street savvy wisdom with humor and his vast vocabulary of facial expressions. Yes, we laugh at him because of all he’s done before, but he comes off as a deeply disturbed character. “In a case like this, I would kill everyone,” he tells Billy alluding to his suspicion that there’s a rat inside his crew.
The complex scenario is multidimensional in that Costello is playing the ends against the middle and has ties with the FBI, which further complicates the Task Force’s investigation. Meanwhile, the two moles are getting much closer to finding out about each other, which builds the already explosive tension created by Scorsese’s taut orchestration of the scenes. The result is riveting as the satellite characters revolve around Costello, their orbits gradually degrading into an ultimate collision of bodies.
Martin Sheen portrays Captain Oliver Queenan, who has secretly placed his mole, Billy in Costello’s trusted inner-circle. When Colin is put in an untenable position of finding himself, he casts suspicion on Captain Queenan, and has him followed. Ah yes, at this point in the scenario, bodies are piling up and instant karma is reaching a crescendo. When it comes to the yin-yang of good and evil, this story melds them into one concept. “When you’re facing a loaded gun, cops or criminals–what’s the difference?” says Costello, who knows that he is playing a deadly game and it’s only a matter of who kills him first--the cops or his crew.
Like Gangs of New York, this film showcases Scorsese’s master directorial genius of creating bloody realism on the streets of a big city, where the police and criminals try to outsmart each other. The story explores the gray area between law and lawlessness, in that, both moles are damaged goods from growing up on the streets, but the lines of morality are blurred when each has to face his karma.
Colin has aligned himself with Costello’s murderous rampage, in which his killing is his method of justice. Each murder puts Costello deeper in karmic debt. Billy is faced with divided loyalties between his police undercover duties and his association with Costello, who is like a father to him. Therefore, Colin and Billy share the blurred lines between their double identities. In this case, moral ambiguity affects both moles like a virus, causing them to make irrational decisions. As their faulty moral compasses send them off course, bad things happen, bullets fly, and bodies fly off roofs. Pay back is a bitch!
|
|
|
Was the star-studded set of The Departed full of joy and light? Or studio displeasure and conflict between actors and director? In August of 2005, the buzz was that the perfectionist director Scorsese had pushed the film way over-budget and behind schedule, according to industry insiders. The studio did employ one cost cutting measure; they shot most of the Boston set flick in New York instead of Boston, in order to get New York tax breaks. About 75% of the movie was filmed in New York, with key scenes shot in Boston to give it that Beantown feel.
The excessive takes reportedly had DiCaprio frustrated, when it took over six hours to shoot a scene on the court-house steps. It’s difficult to say whether the actor continued to be frustrated when strippers came looking for him on the set. Co-star Matt Damon relays, “We had one night where we were shooting all night next to a strip club. And there’s just this point where we’re driving to the set and like 20 girls in G-strings with dollar bills coming out were like, ‘Where’s Leonardo?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, my friend, this is my home. Welcome.”
Jack Nicholson’s rewrites of his part had Scorsese filming two versions of every scene Nicholson was in: the original script version and the one with his re-writes. A source told the New York Daily News, “Jack didn’t feel there was enough Jack in his character. Jack actually did some of the writing himself.” The source also mentioned that Nicholson also wanted to spice up his sex scenes: “Jack suggested using a [prosthetic appendage]. He also wanted to dust the a** of one of the actresses with cocaine. Marty said, ‘Go for it!’” A Warner Bros spokesman added that “It’s not at all uncommon for dialogue to be fine-tuned during production. Everyone is extremely pleased with the way this shoot is proceeding.”
|
|
