Review of The Departed (2006) by Stevenw. — 03 Jan 2007

I've noticed that most of the positive comments of this movie tend to come from people who are essentially Scorcese worshippers - people who will praise anything the 'great director' comes up with.

While this film might have its merits, this movie suffers from terrible characterisation, enough to kill this film. As somebody called JR M posted earlier, "Since much of the movie revolved around a sense of sympathy or at least belief in the tribulations of his character, Decaprio's cardbard portrayal destroyed any emotional engagement in the character".

It was hard to care about a guy who spent the whole movie whining. [***SPOILER***] I cheered when Dicaprio's character got shot, and then I asked myself, 'Hey, aren't I supposed to be rooting for this guy?' His character was poorly concieved, poorly written, poorly characterised, and above all poorly (over) acted.