Saw it this weekend. Good movie. Not perfect, but really good. I can tell I liked it because I find myself still thinking about it, hearing in my head the searing Irish-punk song that plays throughout. I'm toying with going to see the movie again, which is unheard of for me these days.
Sure, it's got the head-splorching gunfight action you'd expect to see from a Scorsese movie (his best since GOODFELLAS, hands down), but it's also funny, moving, and yes, deep. It's about fathers, sons, brothers, where we find family, how family shapes us.
Like MYSTIC RIVER, THE DEPARTED evokes Shakespeare, and the bloodier Jacobean playwrights. Unlike MYSTIC RIVER, the references play. MYSTIC RIVER wishes it was this movie.
I saw it with a pretty full house, and there was one moment that elicited an audible gasp from the crowd. Don't remember the last time I experienced that.
Other moments caused laughter, not because they were funny -- desperately not, in most cases -- but because there was so much tension that when it was dispelled, we made that little involuntary laugh of relief or shock.
The cast is fantastic. Smooth deceiver Matt Damon, noble Martin Sheen, fury-powered Mark Wahlberg, hilarious Alec Baldwin, Jack being Jack, whip-smart but vulnerable Vera Farmiga holding her own.
And while I've never drunk the kool-aid about Leonardo diCaprio before, he is outstanding in this. Performance of his life, to date.
Plus, he spends most of the movie looking like Eric Dane, McSteamy from GREY'S ANATOMY.
This is not a bad thing.
1 comment:
So with you re: Mystic River.
This is my favorite Scorsese movie, even though it's not the best Scorsese film.
Same thing in my theater -- two moments of full audience gasps. A lot of laughter, too, esp every time Wahlberg or Baldwin open their mouths. Can't remember the last time I saw a movie that held everyone in the theater the way this movie did.
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