Be forewarned- I think Scorcese got me pregnant with this one.
Come back here after you have seen it. We can share spoilers and form a support group.
I never see movies opening night, but I will be today.
95% at Rotten Tomatoes, 88 at Metacritic (with only one film, The Queen, ranked higher), this also promises to be Scorsese’s biggest moneymaker in quite a while.
Can’t wait.
Planning on a Sunday viewing here. Wouldn’t miss it. Be glad to work in a little discussion later.
–Beck
Y’all know it’s a remake of Infernal Affairs, by Hong Kong director Andy Lau, right?
I’m so hoping Mr. K will be in the mood to go to da show this weekend. I really want to see this one on the big screen.
Andy Lau was the star (along with Tony Leung) of IA, and is not to be confused with Andrew Lau (Wai Keung), the director.
I haven’t seen it, but it’s not as good as the original!!! 
Please please please let the poor man have his damned Oscar.
Kind of a cool link…the college I attended is mentioned in it…I remember my last year of school, there was an article in the Campus Voice that said that someone from Hollywood had contacted the school, for hats and shirts to be used in the movie, b/c my college has the highest rate of Criminal Justice majors in Mass.
Excellent movie, one of the most entertaining of the year. Not the most (that’d be Snakes on a Plane or Jackass 2), not the most memorable (Brick or Half Nelson), but a helluva a lot of fun! Absolutely excellent acting, extremely funny dialogue (especially from Mark Wahlberg), amazing cast, extreeemely violent, never feels too long (even with about six endings), and, of course, oozing with testosterone.
I just got back from it. All the raves are warranted. This easily Marty’s best film since Goodfellas. It’s very entertaining with chock-full of Scorsese gangster movie goodness. Tons of foul language, casual, unexpected violence, great use of rock songs in the sound track, tight plotting and top-notch acting, especially by DiCapprio. Damon and Nicholson give very good performances but not really surprising ones, but Leo’s character really becomes the heart of the film. He makes the character believably intelligent, tragic, sympathetic and even heroic while also managing (against my expectations) to be plausible as a badass when he has to.
The actress who played the psychiatrist was very good as well. I’ve never seen her before but she made her character way more real and interesting than you would normally expect from a “the girl” in a gangster opera.
The movie is long but never really drags. The plot is intricate but never becomes confusing. Visually the film is exactly the technical masterpiece you would expect from Scorcese.
If I have one minor nitpick, it’s that I though the very ending seemed a little tacked on and kind of weird. It doesn’t ruin the movie, though.
I’ve never seen the original but I’ll have to check it out.
This movie wasn’t good, it was EXCELLENT. I sort of agree with what Diogenes said about the ending sort of feeling tacked on, but it also closed up everything pretty well - mostly I just think it had a different “feel” than much of the rest of the movie, for one reason or another. Martin Sheen and the Hot Psychologist both had accent issues that were a little jarring, but everyone else worked pretty well. As a bonus, it’s probably the second or third funniest movie I’d seen this year, and I go to way too many comedies for that to say something good about the state of movies.
The use of music in the movie was also just perfect.
If you don’t like gratuitous violence, skip this one - otherwise, it’s definitely one to catch in the theaters.
I just saw this tonight. Great movie, I completely agree with what others have said. I was shocked how long the movie was because it didn’t feel like I had been sitting there that long.
There was one plot issue that is really bugging me though. Sadly, I don’t know how to do spoiler tags and I don’t want to give anything away.
Help.
You spoiler like this. Do the same thing as you would do for quote tags but put the word “spoiler” in the brackets instead of “quote”
Change the parentheses to brackets and this (spoiler)Darth Vader is Luke Sywalker’s dad(/spoiler) will get you this: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad.
Thanks Diogenes
Let me see if this works. Just in case I screwed it up please be aware that the next paragraph is a spoiler!!! Do not read it if you haven’t seen the movie!!
Crap! I blew it big time. If there is a moderator still awake could you please fix the above message and hide the spoilers?
Thank you
Wheee! I have been waiting for 36 hours to bring spoilers into this discussion! I will be seeing The Departed again tomorrow with all of the friends I can gather.
Kiros , I thought it was hilarious and laughed all the way through the movie. The audience around me: did not. Other than a few giggles at the banter between Wahlberg and Sheen- nothing. I wondered if they were watching the same movie.
My favorite funnies:
Mr French: “There’s guys you hit, there’s guys you don’t hit… Now. What were you drinking?” Costigan “Cranberry juice.” French: “What are you, on yer period?”
Costello: “How’s your mother?” Bar patron: “She’s not doing so good. She’s on her way out.” Costello: “We all are. My advice to you is to act accordingly.”
Costigan shoots the thug in the knee. Thug starts yelling “Ow! I can feel that! I’m supposed to be in shock! I can still feel that and it hurts!”
I laughed so hard at the series of rat vs. rat murders in the abandoned building I hurt myself.
abbeytxs,
I think the envelope Leo gave to the shrink contained discs of the recordings between Damon and Jack. He also sent one disc to Damon, but remember, he didn’t know that Damon was living with the shrink when he did that. He also told Damon that he had more of them stashed away. The shrink was the only person he could have stashed them with. That’s my guess anyway. Why she didn’t do anything with them, I don’t know. She did leave Matt but maybe she didn’t have the heart to send him to prison…or maybe she gave them to Marky Mark? That would help explain the ending if there was a deleted scene involving something like that.
It’ll never happen. It’s just tradition at this point; bring Scorsese in, nominate his film for a bunch of Oscars, let it win one or two in technical categories (editing, for instance), and then blow off Scorsese for some Oscar-bait film of questionable merit. (It doesn’t help that in the last decade, Scorsese has bascially been pandering to the Oscars with his films, rendering them of mediocre quality.)
I was expecting this to be another in a long line of post-Goodfellas blahs–especially since it stars DiCaprio–so I’m pleased to see pretty much uniform raves about it.
Stranger
I didn’t read any reviews before and I am glad to see the Oscar Buzz. I walked out and said that we just saw a special movie – like Goodfellas or Scarface – this is a film that folks will still be talking about and comparing – especially gangster - movies to in 20 years. But it is not a movie for everyone – when (hopefully) the Buzz really gets going on this and Grandmas start going out to see what all the fuss is about, they are going to be horrified. I will be careful who I recommend it to.
I think this was the best I have seen Nicholson since a Few Good Men. He really is fearless about letting it all hang out