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agate
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Joined: 17 May 2006
Posts: 5694
Location: Oregon
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 Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:03 am Post subject: THE DEPARTED (2006) |
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I don’t find gangster movies very interesting, but thought I should try another Scorsese movie since I’ve seen a couple of other Scorsese movies, and I usually like Jack Nicholson’s performances.
Since I’m not very familiar with this genre, and since guys plugging other guys aren’t scenes I find easy to watch, I can’t have much of an opinion about this movie. It had so much obscenity in it that at times it seemed like a parody of itself. Either the makers of this movie set out to show how phallocentric (and narrow) the world of men can be, or it does so unknowingly. In any event, the point is made….
According to the Trivia section at iMDB,
| Quote: |
| This is the movie with the most uses of the word “fuck” and its derivatives (237) to win the Best Picture Oscar. |
Incidentally the movie seems to be putting in plugs for Boston–but why, one wonders? Most of the movie was actually filmed in New York. Maybe they were bending over backwards to give it Boston touches. There are more scenes showing the state capitol building than you can shake a stick at, and there are references to Jordan Marsh and the Fenway and even a very brief glimpse of South Station.
But that is by the way. We also have the one woman in the movie wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, and characters trying to talk the way many people in Boston talk. Since this isn’t always consistent, the effect is a bit forced.
And then there are the Irish references. Watching this movie, you’d think that Boston is populated almost entirely by people of Irish extraction. There’s a nod to the occasional person of color and the occasional person of Italian background but by and lodge (=by and large), the cast consists of Irish-heritage guys. To be sure, in Boston the cops probably are predominantly Irish-American but there are a lot of Italian-Americans and others on the police force.
The two young men in the major roles–Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon– seem inappropriate for the parts they’re playing. They’re both too young and impressionable-looking, too snub-nosed and not dry behind the ears yet. One has a dinky little moustache and a few frown lines between his eyebrows, but these attempts at making him look older and seasoned just don’t work. It’s not that their parts should have been played by older guys but that they should have been played by actors who look a little less as if they’re still gazing at the world in starry-eyed wonderment.
And this is a small point but the version of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” that plays during one scene isn’t the version I’m familiar with and sounded inferior to me, but maybe it’s all in what you’re used to listening to.
A couple of other objections. The rat running across a backdrop of the state capitol building (again), the final scene in the movie, struck me as a particularly witless attempt at wit, and the “strap-on” that is visible for a moment in one scene could have been left out. Costello has already been demonstrated to be one of the scummiest sleazeballs imaginable without tossing the viewers this not-very-tantalizing bit of porn. |
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