The Departed

 

Director Martin Scorsese

Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus

Scorsese on the set with Di Caprio, Damon, and Nicholson

 

Scorsese on the set with Jack Nicholson

Leonardo Di Caprio on the set

THE DEPARTED            A-             

USA  (151 mi)  2006  ‘Scope  d:  Martin Scorsese

Heaven holds the faithful Departed.

—F. Costello (Jack Nicholson)

No one lives and breathes movies like Martin Scorsese, with this testosterone-laden picture winning Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (his first win after six losses and 35-years in the business, many believing it was a correction of former mistakes), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing, as not since Goodfellas (1990) has the pure use of language and particularly profanity in a film risen to such singular heights, becoming the most humorously provocative aspect of the film, written by William Monahan, combining the personas of cops and criminals into one stir fry mix, and they both come out sounding the same, which is a neverending discourse on politically incorrect use of slang distinctively designed to immediately offend and as quickly as possible disarm or render powerless every racial group.  Mark Wahlberg, especially, fresh from INVINCIBLE (2006), his Disney film as the PG bartender turned professional football player, plays a brash cop who protects the identities in his Undercover Division, making the most out of every second onscreen with his extraordinary delivery of machismo trash talk, who actually needs to be toned down by the more polished and understated Alec Baldwin, whose presence immediately conjures up images from South Park writer’s TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (2004).  Jack Nicholson and Ray Winstone are an interesting sadistic pairing, the crime boss and his heavy, while the same can be said for Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, two informer cops on the force, each secretly answering to a higher power, one on the inside and one on the outside, who miraculously come together through a police shrink who sleeps with both of them, Vera Farmiga, without ever knowing it.  An accomplished remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s INTERNAL AFFAIRS TRILOGY (2002-03), coming out of a Hong Kong New Wave that was itself heavily influenced by Scorsese, as John Woo dedicated THE KILLER (1989) to him while Wong Kar-wai modeled his first feature, AS TEARS GO BY (1988), after Mean Streets (1973), yet this is set in the Irish sector of South Boston, where by the end, you need a scorecard to keep tabs on who’s informing on who, a film that starts out like gangbusters, filled with humor and a free-wheeling energy, but it sadly fizzles out a bit by the end when it’s time to settle the score, but the body count is so heavy you may not notice. 

With wall-to-wall rock music, most adeptly chosen by Robbie Robertson of The Band, the opening is quintessential Scorsese, with the use of the Rolling Stone’s “Gimme Shelter,” The Departed Opening (HD) - Jack Nicholson Monologue ... YouTube (1:26), with exquisite use of the ‘Scope camera by one-time Fassbinder cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, hard to believe it’s the same man who shot THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (1972), and by the sheer ferocity of power coming off the screen, also making scintillating use of the Dropkick Murphys song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” Im Shipping up to Boston full scene in The Departed - HQ ... YouTube (2:23), while also featuring a Van Morrison vocal from the Pink Floyd song “Comfortably Numb” during a sex scene, The Departed - YouTube (3:13).  Side by side, we get a highly complex internalized glimpse of both the police force and a crime boss’s operations, how they use one another for information and try to outthink the other by using their guys.  It gets pretty tricky having to sort out the jumbled mix of information which needs to be acted upon immediately, where lives are at stake, but it becomes pretty clear the risks are enormous and puts a huge psychological drain on the informants, who continuously appear dangerously close to exposure.  This is not for the faint of heart and remains gripping throughout, keeping us on the edge of our seats until it all falls apart at the end, much like the INTERNAL AFFAIRS series, which turns into a bloody massacre of mayhem where you can’t tell the good guys from the bad, as dead they’re all one and the same.  And that’s the problem here as well, as it becomes overly simplistic considering the build up of an exemplary darkened world that Scorsese has taken great care to embellish, probing rapidly shifting themes of identity, trust, betrayal, and deception, where even in this murky Macbethian atmosphere of paranoiac revenge where everyone has blood on their hands, it defies belief that when top officers are killed, no one within the department is held accountable.  In the aftermath the film doesn’t even address what the department does, other than bury its dead with honors, suggesting it’s completely irrelevant, focusing instead on the stunning wreckage from a few high powered individuals, both cops and criminals, who administer their own brand of street justice, which is without paperwork, served up man to man.  

It’s astonishing how much operations manpower is placed behind this informant information, considering the degree of difficulty and risk needed to get it, which leads to its highly questionable accuracy.  The film raises the question about similar information utilized by the highest intelligence gathering sources in the land, the special forces operatives in Iraq or Afghanistan, who are responsible for sending missiles into the homes of third world families suspecting terrorists are inside, sometimes resulting in a high death toll of innocents due to mistaken intelligence, largely from the word of a single informant who may be playing one side against the other.  Despite its brutality, the film is surprisingly humorous throughout, right down to the very last shot.  Interesting as well that Scorsese threw nuns and priests into this mix, begging the question, just who can you trust anymore when every professional entity protects its own with cover ups and lies?  What’s left to believe?  Is it safe?  Roughly half the film’s budget went to paying salaries, where Matt Damon is a pathological liar adept at self-preservation, mentored by Nicholson, a lifelong criminal, both loosely based on famous gangster Whitey Bulger and his childhood pal John Connolly who would grow up to become a corrupt FBI Agent, Leonardo DiCaprio describes his own character as a “constant 24-hour panic attack,” constantly downing anti-anxiety medicine, while Mark Wahlberg running the undercover operation is easily the freshest face in the bunch, nominated for an Academy Award with the least amount of screen time simply for his ferocious and hilarious use of profanity, as the “f” word, and its derivatives, are used two hundred thirty-eight times.  One of the few Scorsese films set in the present, very few films capture the amorality of police culture running amok quite like this one, where the line between moral authority and criminality is thin, frequently crossed, and usually covered up, mirroring the mentality of Matt Damon, worried only about self-preservation, as it’s a culture that protects its own at the expense of the public that it’s sworn to serve and protect.  The only remake of a foreign film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, it’s a thoroughly entertaining tour de force, where Wahlberg’s psychological undressing of new police recruit DiCaprio is easily the best thing in the film, a blistering profanity-filled exposé of his family’s criminal history, yet even with that realization they find a place for him within the police force, but only through a crushing ostracization that turns him into an outcast, making him feel subhuman, like an alien in an alien world, revealing precisely how dehumanization defines police culture. 

Postscript

Still contemporary and more relevant than ever following the needless police murder of George Floyd, when a white police officer kept a knee upon his neck for nearly 8-minutes, showing no resistance, already handcuffed and lying on the ground, even after yelling “I can’t breathe,” where the last 3-minutes are entirely still and motionless, resembling a public lynching (with 5 other men across the country shot and killed by police that same day!), causing global outrage, leading to weeks and perhaps months of unending protest against police brutality, particularly against people of color, who are stereotyped, dehumanized, brutally manhandled, and treated vastly differently than whites, suggesting a white supremacist carryover mentality since the era of slavery and a gross manipulation of the U.S. Patriot Act signed immediately after 9/11 to counter the impending threat of terrorism, now routinely targeting blacks as terrorists, where police in America have not gone more than two days without fatally shooting someone since 2015, so it may not be enough to reform such a closed and protected system that is so deeply unaccountable to the public it allegedly serves. 

Knives Out

Director Rian Johnson

Director Rian Johnson (right) with actors Chris Evans and Ana de Armas on the set

KNIVES OUT            B-                   

USA  (130 mi)  2019  d: Rian Johnson                       Official site

When people get desperate, the knives come out.

―tagline for the film

A terrific story does not necessarily translate to a terrific film, as this is easily one of the uglier digitalized film looks in over a decade, resembling some of the earliest efforts with the technology, overly dark, featuring plenty of troublesome empty shadows, while the facial crevices in the multitude of close-ups are just horrific, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the dreary, colorless palette of Michael Mann’s PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009).  From the maker of BRICK (2005), still his most original feature, THE BROTHERS BLOOM (2008), and Looper (2012), this is a satiric, modern era update of the classical Agatha Christie thriller where a ghastly murder takes place in a Gothic mansion, yet no one is allowed to leave the premises until police can interrogate all the suspects, where a clever detective has a way of unleashing all the hidden family secrets, often pitting one suspect against another, where money is always a motive as insurmountable clues mount up, yet audiences relish the idea of playing along, making a collective game out of solving the crime.  This is old-fashioned homage entertainment, turning a house into a board game of Clue (which apparently grew out of the British popularity of Agatha Christie novels, writing 66 of them during her lifetime, devising all manner of novel ways to kill someone), given a modern era twist that lightheartedly pokes fun at the Trump administration’s xenophobic views on immigrants, subverting expectations by making a lesser character (an immigrant caretaker who is viewed as little more than hired help) the smartest person in the room, befuddling all the rich white folks who are screwed out of their inheritance by some vengeful trickery, quickly blaming the outsider, but it’s the family’s own avarice and malicious intent that ultimately does them in, every single one a freeloader, yet they’re left to bitch and moan about how they were cheated out of what was rightfully theirs, while they gleefully support the idea they are self-made success stories (despite receiving a generous million dollar loan to start their business), leading lives of privilege, always identifying with the upper class, continually blaming others for their own shortcomings.  While no one really distinguishes themselves here, no standout performances, you’d like to think there’s some sardonic Buñuelian wit about it, but that’s not the case either, as instead the model seems to be the Joseph Mankiewicz film SLEUTH (1972) based upon the wildly popular play by British playwright Anthony Shaffer, where a famous upper class author of detective novels is pitted against the unorthodox tactics of his lower class rival, each trying to outwit the other, yet the author’s supreme arrogance allows him to presume victory, where his expectations are masterfully subverted, slowly turning the tables, where that smug air of hubris finally gets its comeuppance.  That original source is lightyears better than this material, which feels so middle of the road.   

 

While it’s an unconventional but likeable enough ensemble cast of familiar faces, some absent from the screen for a while, as Johnson creates a pleasant atmosphere of murky suspense, where the viewing audience feels comfortable spending time with this group, much like Tarantino does with his casts.  At the center is the aging patriarch, successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), who is happily celebrating his 85th birthday, surrounded by his family, but winds up dead before the night is done, apparently slitting his own throat, which his family finds incomprehensible, thinking it must be murder.  Police detectives arrive in the form of Lakeith Stanfield as Detective Elliot and his underling Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan), who is thrilled to be there, a huge fan, having read every one of Harlan’s books, offering commentary along the way, explaining how it resembles the plots from various books.  Sitting in the background is Benoit Blanc, (Daniel Craig), reprising that southern accent he used in Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky (2017), an overly polite Southern gentleman acknowledged to be a hired detective, though it remains a mystery just who exactly hired him, yet he announces from the outset he suspects foul play.  Losing patience with the dull police routine, he eventually asserts himself as the sleuth mastermind, taking a lead role in the questioning, though at times his grandiloquent verbiage is so charmingly quaint that it feels he’s intentionally pleasing himself, adding a bit of color to the proceedings.  Jamie Lee Curtis is Harlan’s daughter Linda, a successful real estate mogul married to a deadbeat husband, Don Johnson as Richard, an opinionated oaf with decidedly racist leanings.  Harlan put his son Walt (Michael Shannon, always in bulky sweaters) in charge of his own publishing house, with strict instructions never to do adaptations for movies or television, which would make big bucks, but dilute the stories (exactly as this film does).  Joni (Toni Collette) is widowed from a deceased son, yet continues to be married to the lifestyle, while the black sheep of the family is the overly smug Chris Evans as Ransom (the offspring of Linda and Richard), who lavishly spends money like its growing on trees, viewed as a pompous ass, an object of derision by the rest of the family.  The nurse caretaker is Marta (Ana de Armas), who provides the needed medicine for Harlan, and seems to be the one person he could openly talk to, who at some point in the film is from either Uruguay, Brazil, Cuba, Paraguay, or Ecuador, though may in fact have been born in the United States, but her mother is undocumented.  Nonetheless, while professing sanctimonious appreciation for her services, she is largely viewed as undocumented herself, as if the family has done her a huge favor by hiring her.  

The beauty in films like this is in the back and forth banter between characters, where Johnson takes great relish in providing theatrically fun dialogue that moves along at a crisp pace, while unearthed clues and various backstory reveals add to a tautly connected storyline that continually develops over time, moving from one family member to another, where it has the feel as if the dead Harlan is actually pulling the strings behind the scenes, unraveling like one of his books, as so much of the story is generated through his character.  Each family member has a private conference with him on the day he died, the contents of which might provide an alibi for murder, yet each professes perfect innocence to the police, covering up any hint of suspicion, which, of course, arouses suspicion.  Blanc quickly discovers the key to resolving this matter, as Marta has a medical condition where she vomits if she tells a lie, which is like having a polygraph machine for all her testimony.  Rerouting all the witness testimony through her is a new angle, as if under a witness protection program by the police, who avail themselves of her resources, quickly determining that all the Thrombey children have lied to authorities and covered up what was really said behind closed doors, as the brunt of the film is to get to the heart of the matter, weaving its way through a circuitous path of lies and subterfuge.  The double crosses here are fast and furious, as what is presumed as the truth may later come undone, continually unraveling new information, where some of the most effective asides incorporate movie or TV reports about horrendous murders, with viewers intensely riveted by the material, including Marta’s mother, seen viewing a TV episode of Murder, She Wrote in Spanish.  The house itself plays out like a haunted house, protected by an iron gate and an elaborate security system, with two Doberman guard dogs, while the inside is filled with items Harlan loved, including masks, laughing clown or sailor faces (some identical replicas from the set of SLEUTH), with items crammed in every corner, where he was a lover of games of all sorts, spending much of his free time engaged in clever musings.  The film carries that same esprit de corps with each building mystery, as flashbacks, recounted testimony, or new revelations prevent any easy resolution, growing ever more complicated, where there are stories within stories within stories that may leave viewers confused, but that’s the beauty of the detective mystery.  What’s perhaps most surprising is the amount of screen time for Marta, a daughter of immigrants who thoroughly outworks the bluebloods, earnest and apparently sincere, the moral center of a surrounding cesspool, who was initially thought to have nothing to do with it, but may have everything to do with it, but she couldn’t be more distinctly different (though bland) than the vengefully manipulative family members who think only of themselves, where the reading of the will is a hilarious indictment of their true character, each one more detestable than the next, hanging themselves by their own self-centered testimony, eventually falling like a house of cards, coinciding with Blanc’s ultimate epiphany of truth, an indictment that spares no one, creating a topsy turvy world where nothing is real and fleeting perceptions can change in an instant.