Today’s guest post comes to us from Eric LeVan. I have the distinguished pleasure of working with this gentleman on a daily basis. I asked for guest posts and he responded by sending me his thoughts on the movie Watchmen. My original thoughts on it can be found here. Eric’s personal blog is Cheesy Bacon Jesus.

Since it appears that the entire world has a subscription to Netflix, I decided to join up for the free month of snail mail entertainment, and the occasional instavid. One of the first movies I placed in my queue and therefore received was Watchmen.

While the only two comics I’ve ever actually read religiously are The Exiles and Kick-Ass, I generally have a pretty good knowledge of a comic’s back story before I see the motion picture rendition. Watchmen was an exception. Knowing nothing about Watchmen before viewing it, I was amazed to discover that in lieu of being a cookie cutter superhero movie, it was in fact a philosophical challenge of self discovery with the more general theme of the cause and effect of human nature surrounding it.

My expectations were simply another super hero movie that would probably fail to generate any type of connection with its audience–one that was fully meant to appease the general nerd public and to line the pockets of the studio that created it. So easily it seems that the quality of films coming out today suffers through remake after remake and general lack of originality.

Watchmen started off strong with the assassination of The Comedian, a superhero with superior fighting skills, whom at the time I was not sure was a good guy. After the assassination sequence, the film led you down a montage of the past showcasing super heroes who either died or went into hiding in order to avoid the backlash from collateral damage and public unease that their existence seemed to generate. This was all in response to the growing cold war in which Richard Nixon was entering his fourth term as president, a real doppelganger to FDR.

The main plot of the movie is spent looking back through the history of the superheros and their trials and tribulations. The main focus is The Comedian since in present time, the remaining group of super beings is trying to uncover the details of his murder. The Comedian is truly an antihero. He killed his enemies and sometimes civilians without hesitation and he laughs about it only because it’s all one big joke, that in the end, in the grand scheme of the universe, it all truly doesn’t matter. This theme is repeated throughout the movie by the nuclear wonder, Dr. Manhattan.

With Watchmen, I found that I rather enjoyed the occasional non sequitur of deep thought moment to bone crushing violence. It was certainly a far cry from the norm and anyone that knows me knows that I love innovation on existing genres. It felt like I was watching an illegitimate love-child of the X-Men and The Incredibles and I rather enjoyed it.

The character “Dr. Manhattan” weirded me out a bit, however. While he was purported to be an omniscient being, the result of a nuclear experiment gone wrong, he was still taken advantage of in multiple ways, causing him to simply teleport to another galaxy at the end of the movie (spoiler alert, Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud). It begged the question, why had he even joined a “side” in the complex turmoil involved amongst the world’s nations. It was said over and over throughout the movie that he simply didn’t understand humans, yet there was scene where was making guerillas in the Viet Cong explode. As a super-set to all the other superheroes he just didn’t seem to fit among the story very well while still playing a crucial role in its development.

I absolutely loved Rorschach. He was a character that I simply wanted to be. He overcame a childhood of extreme negativity and used it to fuel not only his abilities, but his commitment to truth and justice. His superhero persona was absolutely perfectly fitted to him and wasn’t indicative of the usual “Awesome Man” super-being nomenclature. I truly felt for him throughout the whole movie. Of all the characters, he had only one crisis of conscience throughout the course of the movie, and once he overcame it, he set himself on the right path until the very end.

All around I’d call it a very fun watchable good movie, although the Dr. Manhattan thing still doesn’t sit very well with me. Watchmen mixed broken souls, astrophysics, sweet violence and nudity all into a tasty cake of storytelling. I greatly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a great story about extraordinary people coming to terms with their own ordinary flaws.

Andrew Gyorkos brings us today’s guest post. He is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto. His focus is on writing, journalism, and film. He does a lot of reviews. His personal site can be found at Confederate Wing Enjoy!

Knight and Day

There are people out there who would have you believe that a film which is likely to have no lasting impact on its audience, a film which is disposable, is a film which should not be praised or advocated under any circumstance. Such movies can be proficient in all other regards, featuring strong performances, exhilarating action, breezy pacing, and technically solid production, yet some people would still readily condemn it because a certain substantial quality is lacking. For many, Knight and Day is just such a film. Because its primary goal is to entertain and not necessarily to engage, one might indeed have difficulty recalling some of the finer details of the proceedings after the end credits roll. But why such a fact should be used to devalue either the experience of watching the film or even the merit of the entire production strikes me as being rather curious. If I enjoyed watching the movie, does it really matter if I can remember the enjoyment of watching it weeks, days, or even mere hours later?

This is exactly the question I had in mind not after watching Knight and Day itself, but rather after watching Movie Bob’s review of Knight and Day on “Escape to the Movies”. Before I go any further, however, I wish to make clear that the last thing I want to sound like is a critic who feels the need to validate their own opinions by making sure they align with that of either the professionals or the majority, and that I certainly hope that my reviews over the years don’t come off as sounding as such. It is withextreme apprehension that I dare even to mention the opinions of another as I detail my own sentiments. Having said this, it bears reiteration that Movie Bob was rather dismissive of Knight and Day in his review, largely owing to its rather disposable nature. While I agree that it is disposable, I disagree that it ought to be dismissed outright. The review that follows will be neither a direct response to Movie Bob’s position nor a disingenuous contrarian perspective. What it will be is the same sort of review you may have come to expect from me, the inevitable writing of which was inspired by Movie Bob and prompted by an opportunity from Josh Loomis (from Blue Ink Alchemy). I simply felt that I owed you, the reader, this brief preface explaining my unique frame of mind during this particular reviewing process.

Hot on the heels of the abysmal Killers, Knight and Day would initially appear to be cut from the same cloth of big names resigned to conducting an action romantic comedy trainwreck. Appearances can be deceiving, however, and it wouldn’t be entirely fair to discredit Knight and Day just because its one-line synopsis might resemble a disaster not yet a month old. So while the “innocent girl hooking up with mysterious lethal man” angle is unusually familiar for June 2010, you shouldn’t let the dreadful reception of one movie sour your enthusiasm for the other, no matter how similar they appear to be.

Using a peculiar blend of action, romance, and comedy, Knight and Day spins a pedestrian tale of international intrigue, presumably dumbed down so that it may amplify the effects of its disparate angles. The success of its genre mélange, especially the comedic tendencies, is largely owed to the immeasurable charm and charisma of Tom Cruise’s murder machine, Roy Miller, whose dreamy gaze and blunt reassurances can melt away all worry of imminent death even after he’s just shot you in the leg. The brand of humour on display here is easy to appreciate yet hard to describe. It’s neither the silly ineptitude associated with spy parody, nor the vulgarity associated with the modern day comedy of Kevin Smith or Judd Apatow. It’s the sort that comes from reacting to real, violent situations without expressing any real concern, treating the threats of rogue government agents and assassins as if they were nothing to be worried about, and trying to compel a companion who’s clearly not used to such scenarios to see it the same way.

This companion would be June Havens (Cameron Diaz) who had the unfortunate pleasure of being on the same flight to Boston as Roy Miller, a flight of which the two were the only survivors and thus became unlikely companions. Together, they travel the globe trying to prevent a powerful perpetual energy source from falling into evil hands, each trying to gain something very different from the experience. Roy is aiming for redemption and the restoration of his honour and integrity, and June is presumably aiming for the thrill of international espionage (and if she can have Roy fall in love with her, then so much the better).

Mixing romance and comedy isn’t a ground breaking formula, nor is further spicing it with action. What does break new ground, however, is when all three elements manage to work together to create a desirable product.  Romance and action don’t blend as well as one might be tricked into thinking after 48 years of James Bond movies. Whereas action relies on suspension of disbelief to be effective, romance needs honest and genuine scenarios with believably compatible leads to work. If you’re going to make a real world action thriller with lead characters who are expected to fall in love with each other, and still want to make it funny as well, you’re going to be facing quite a challenge.

The way Knight and Day responds to such a challenge is, thankfully, quite clever. Instead of following Roy’s lead for the entire running time, an effort is made to let June have an active role.  She’s the one, in fact, who made romantic advances on Roy. Albeit this was mere moments before she discovered his assassin-like attributes, and thus may seem to have been committed to him, if only subconsciously, well before the man of mystery business goes international. Or rather, this could be interpreted to be the case. Details that would shed some light on the rationale behind some of the character’s decisions seem to be glossed over to facilitate intrigue. Why doesn’t June walk away from Roy when he gives her the opportunity, for example? Or why doesn’t Roy just kill June or leave her to the whims of fate and the agencies after them for the sake of his mission?  The occurrence of these questions could alternatively be seen as script failures, but ideally, I think that it should be left to the actors to make the romance convincing and not exclusively the script to indicate as such. And if my own explanations for the film’s inconsistencies still seem flimsy, then I must ask you, what good is a secret agent without his secrets?

With a focus more on energy and action than on logic, the biggest crime of which Knight and Day may well be accused is of being boring. And while I can’t in good conscience say that there’s never a dull moment, certainly there is never a dull moment that lasts for too long. From the opening set piece on an airplane to the ending confrontation in Spain, an effortless fluency of pace is kept.  It’s not wall-to-wall action by any stretch of the phrase, but a real sense of urgency and tension does exist when the guns aren’t drawn. And when they are, the action is colourful and well choreographed. After years of big budget superhero films which settle disputes in cityscapes with satisfying thumps and crunches, it’s refreshing to see the humble street vehicle chase make an appearance in something other than a Bourne film.

In fact “refreshing” is just the word I’d use to describe Knight and Day in its entirety. It’s colourful, energetic, immensely enjoyable when approached from the right perspective, and, most of all, features an action star who doesn’t brood and mope around all day. So why the negativity for a film whose only ambition was to entertain for two hours, a film which is more thoroughly realized than can be said for anything made by Michael Bay post-Transformers? Is there no longer a place for the modest spy adventure between blockbuster superhero adaptations, low budget and low profile science fiction brilliances, and “love to hate” disaster spectacles that sink back into the mire whence it came? Did the filmmakers commit some sort of betrayal or offence by creating a movie that accomplishes precisely what it set out to do?

If anything about Knight and Day needs to be questioned, it’s why such filmmaking excellence and verve was spent on a rather generic action romantic comedy set up and not something more befitting of the talents involved. At the risk of sounding condescending, the average moviegoer won’t look this far under the surface. They likely won’t appreciate credits like “Director – James Mangold” and “Cinematographer – Phedon Papamichae”, despite their collaborations on such films as Identity (2003), Walk the Line (2005), and, most recently, the brilliant 3:10 to Yuma (2007). They’ve queued up for names like Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, perhaps in the hopes that their first shared movie in nearly a decade is more coherent than whatever Vanilla Sky (2001) was about. Names that the general movie-going public must still be somewhat apprehensive about, thanks to Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping Katie-loving shenanigans, and the fact that Cameron Diaz really hasn’t seen a role of this magnitude or caliber since the Charlie’s Angels sequel in 2003 (Shrek notwithstanding).

And if I’m to be entirely honest, I queued up for Knight and Day precisely because of Tom Cruise. General confidence in his ability allegedly skyrocketed after his outstanding cameo as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder (2008), but my own confidence in his ability never really wavered. He’s still the same stellar actor from Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004), and Mission Impossible (1996, 2000, and 2006), questionable public persona be damned. The only real problem here is that Knight and Day seems to bank on the knowledge that most people are in the theatre because they want to see the actors and not necessarily because they want to see the movie. For this reason, you never really manage to suspend your disbelief.  Obviously the real Tom Cruise doesn’t hop on government cars speeding down the interstate the same way he hops on couches during day time talk shows, yet you still feel like you’re watching the escapades of Tom Cruise and not his character, Roy Miller. Diaz’ character also suffers the same problem, except she’s afflicted mostly due to proximity. In the same way that you never really buy into Tom Cruise’s character, you never really buy into Tom Cruise’s character’s love interest.

Strangely, this natural aptitude for stargazing doesn’t extend to the supporting players. Peter Sarsgaard is menacingly meticulous and understated as the antagonist who may or may not actually be evil, Viola Davis comes across as the tough as nails agency director who’s been tempered in a bureaucratic man’s world, and Paul Dano (whom you may remember as “Klitz” from The Girl Next Door [2004]) is the film’s linchpin scientific savant. As an alternative to enjoying the frequent rollicking action set-pieces, it becomes rather fascinating to watch both well portrayed archetypal characters and characters who can’t outgrow their actors interact with each other. I’m still there for the action, mind you, but it’s an intriguing sublevel which is worth noting.

Yet in the end, a person goes to the movies aiming to spend $10 on two hours of surefire entertainment, not enlightenment. Knight and Day doesn’t offer nirvana, nor does it purport to do so.  However what it does claim to offer is fun, the delivery of which is so rousing and effortless that, in some regards, only the most miserly of people would be unwilling to praise it for that, at least. Having said all this, let me conclude directly by saying that I highly recommend Knight and Day. It’s not the best movie you’ll ever see, nor is it the most memorable, but I personally find undeniable brilliance in its levity and charm. So as a staunch advocate as “cinema as fun”, Knight and Day earns my highest commendation.

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Philip K. Dick is what I would consider a luminary of the genre of science-fiction. He wrote quite a few stories that dealt with concepts like free will, identity and the nature of drug abuse. Somewhere between the adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? that became the sci-fi classic Blade Runner, and the adaptation of The Minority Report that became… well, Minority Report, we have a little story called We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. The story had, as its themes, the nature of memory, the blurring of the borders between fantasy and reality in our minds, and Mars. Some of these themes survived the adaptation process to appear in the film Total Recall, and while the movie isn’t quite the visionary and atmospheric masterpiece of Blade Runner, it at least doesn’t take its premise in entirely the wrong direction, like Minority Report does.

Arnold Schwartzenegger is Douglas Quaid, a mild-mannered construction worker who dreams of something more, specifically the recently colonized Mars. He can’t afford to take his hot blonde wife on vacation, however, and while she seems content to stay home and lavish him with attention, he can’t help longing for something more. He eventually seeks out a company called Rekall, that offers him the vacation of a lifetime in his head – he can go to Mars, be anybody he wants, do just about anything. He chooses the false memories that cast him as a secret agent. However, the doctors find he’s already undergone a memory replacement procedure, and suddenly our inexplicably built hero is fighting to get free from the facility screaming at the doctors for blowing his cover. They fix up the damage, but it’s too late: Quaid has realized that he is, in fact, a deep cover secret agent who is either working for the evil mining conglomerate that controls Mars or carrying the key to Mars’ liberation. Or is he?

Total Recall was directed by Paul Verhoeven, who brought us Starship Troopers and the truly excellent RoboCop. I’ve heard his World War II Jewish vengeance flick Black Book is up there with these films, and it’s on my queue somewhere. Anyway, when you go into a Verhoeven entry, you can expect gratuitous bloody violence, shameless sex appeal that borders on exploitation, undercurrents of social commentary that are both pointed and hilarious, or a combination of all of the above. Sometimes, this doesn’t work when the elements are weighted too much on one side (*cough*Showgirls*cough*), but Total Recall is an example of the Verhoeven formula working, and working well. It’s not quite as effective as RoboCop, nor does the undercurrent buoy up the rest of the film as it does in Starship Troopers, but it still makes for surprisingly good entertainment.

“Wait… you want me to put this where?”

Arnold can get ragged on from time to time for some of his performances. I for one am still slightly traumatized by Batman & Robin. But his particular brand of on-screen presence works well in Total Recall. He’s not an overt badass, like his character in Predator, nor is he the cold, detached and utterly unstoppable Terminator. Douglas Quaid is, for all intents and purposes, an innocent man, completely blindsided by the turn of events that has him on the run from covert operatives and trying to get his ass to Mars. His confusion and attempts to go with the flow of events rather than glowering or brooding make him far more sympathetic and engages the audience surprisingly well. In spite of all of the violence and special effects in this space rock opera, the affair is held together by an element that’s surprisingly human.

I call Total Recall a “space rock opera” because it doesn’t have the gravitas of a genuine space opera like the original unadulterated Star Wars. Its tone, when it isn’t trying to mess around in your head, is decidedly more Flash Gordon than 2001. The bad guys never seem to hit the good guys with their fully automatic weapons, industrial mining equipment is easily re-purposed as death machines and on a world of mutations, space hookers tend to get ‘helpful’ enhancements like an extra breast. It’s definitely more science fantasy than science fiction, and while that does lead to minor issues later, for the most part it works as an engine of whimsy and bloodshed to drive the story.

“Um… clean up? Aisle 5?”

And for two acts, that story hums along quite well. We’re never completely sure if what’s happening to Doug is really happening or if he’s still strapped to the bed back at Rekall. Hints come along here and there to point in one direction or another, especially towards the end of the second act when a doctor shows up along with Quaid’s wife. That aforementioned expression of somewhat bewildered confusion Arnold wears for most of this adds a bit of necessary weight to the games the story play with the audience’s minds. For the majority of the film, Total Recall seems to be, at least on an intellectual level, trying to be just a touch more than your typical sci-fi shoot-em-up.

Unfortunately, the third act comes down with a nearly terminal case of stupid. Not to give anything away, but the subplot of all of the events possibly being figments of Quaid’s imagination is pretty much dropped and all but the last minute or so of running time are devoted to your typical Arnold action pick-and-mix. There’s a clever little bit with a portable hologram, but other than that you’ve got one-liners, improbable science, the most laughable depiction of decompression I’ve ever seen and endless faceless goons deposited onto the scene straight from the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship. It just gets a little tedious after a while. I mean, if you’re an Arnold fan, this stuff is candy. Too much of it for me tends to make my teeth hurt.

“Playing Mr. Freeze gave me a headache this big.”

Still, Total Recall is like Starship Troopers in more than just classic sci-fi inspiration and themes that transcend the majority of the film’s action. The two films are similar in that the good bits, by and large, outweigh the bad. It’s not without some flaws that will have you laughing out loud or rolling your eyes, but it’s at least got that space rock opera charm in its favor along with the subtle questions on our perception of reality. All in all, it’s a decent ’90s sci-fi action entry whose rough patches are smoothed over with unique story elements rooted in the works of one of the best science fiction writers of our time. Arnold fans, Dick fans and Verhoeven fans should definitely add this to their Netflix queues.

One last note of interest: This film was originally rated X. Verhoeven had to cut the film with some different camera angles and trim some of the violence to get it downgraded to R for general release. It was also one of the last films to use miniatures extensively, instead of relying on CGI. I think that might add to the film’s charm, and let’s face it, CGI might have failed in bringing us things like that triple-breasted hooker. Because let’s face it, that’s what people remember. It’s like remembering the cake scene as the best part of Under Siege. Or thinking of Labyrinth as a movie about David Bowie’s… pants.

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

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Long before things like 3-D, CGI, THX and all those other wonderful acronyms came along, films were seen as extensions of the stage. Actors brought their best Shakespearean bombast, sets were designed as you would the sort of staging you’d have to quickly break down in the dark between acts, and directors framed and propelled their shots in a particular way. If 1938′s classic swashbuckler The Adventures of Robin Hood has a flaw, that’d probably be the biggest one. It’s also completely irrelevant, however, as this is the sort of movie where I can use the words ‘classic swashbuckler’ with an entirely straight face.

King Richard I of England is on his way back from the Crusades when he gets tied up in Austria. Literally. Some guy named Leopold takes him prisoner. Richard’s little brother John takes over and immediately starts oppressing the Saxon commoners, fattening the purses of the Norman land-holders to build up support for his bid for England’s throne. The big thorn in John’s side is the Saxon Robin, Earl of Locksley, who sees right through John’s public decrees that the increased taxes are to pay Richard’s ransom and vows to do everything in his power to stop the oppression and restore Richard to his throne. Sir Guy of Gisbourne, John’s aide de camp, makes a vow of his own, which is to see Robin dangling from the end of a rope, especially when the lovely Maid Marian starts warming to Robin’s roguish charm instead of falling for Guy’s Norman sensibilities and position. There’s plenty of sword fighting, swinging from ropes, and the sort of laughs men make by putting their hands on their hips and engaging their diaphragms.

As I said, this is a classic swashbuckler. The classic part of that comes from the Oscar-winning score and art direction, as well as the acting. The story isn’t all that original but it’s being told with such adventurous abandon and honest charm that the premise never gets in the way of the fun. Sure, the sets look a bit two-dimensional in places, the lighting isn’t always appropriate for the fictional time of day or night and there’s more than enough men in green tights on display to give Mel Brooks something to parody, but in the case of this Robin Hood it’s easy to brush all of that aside. The way in which this movie is acted, shot and presented is so rousing, colorful, lighthearted and satisfying that it could have been shot in the round against a black background and it’d still be entertaining.

“So, I heard you like venison…”

Errol Flynn in particular possesses so much charisma and wit that it’s obvious why he became the iconic Robin Hood for years. He takes a film with a setting, story and style that would normally mark it as charmingly camp, and elevates it to being just plain charming. He has chemistry with Olivia de Havilland, who manages to look glamorous even when she’s wearing some pretty ridiculous headgear. By this point they’d already worked together on two pictures, one of which being the equally iconic Captain Blood which also paired Flynn with one Basil Rathbone.

This is one of the earliest instances I can recall of seeing a main villain who keeps their hands clean while a top lieutenant does the dirty work with relish – a Big Bad and a Dragon, if you will. In Robin Hood, Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone demonstrate exactly how this dynamic should work. Rains’ Prince John is affable, magnanimous, crafty and ruthless all at the same time, and while he never becomes physically involved in the goings-on, his presence is undeniable. Rathbone’s Sir Guy, on the other hand, has little patience for posturing and politics, spending most of his time waiting for Prince John to tell him who he gets to stab next. Long before things like powered armor or automatic weapons were born, Basil Rathbone used tone, poise and expression to show audiences exactly what it means to be the biggest badass in the room.

Prince John’s “WAT.” face

There’s even a touch of a villainous Power Trio, with Melville Cooper’s somewhat rotund and cowardly Sheriff of Nottingham revealing himself to be a pretty smart guy. However, the most interesting relationship is that between Robin and Sir Guy. These are two men who are completely confident in their own abilities, are vying for the affections of the same woman and serve two entirely different masters. Underneath the story stuff, however, is the chemistry between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. It’s particularly telling in their swordplay, which segues me into the ‘swashbuckling’ portion of this ‘classic swashbuckler.’

The swordfights that happen in Robin Hood are fun to watch, with high energy and great music underscoring the tension. The movements are large and deliberate, swords clash against one another and the hero and villain exchange blows on spiral stairs, or wander out of shot for their shadows to do the dueling. This is the textbook example of well-choreographed cinematic swordplay, even if trying to engage someone in a sword fight in real life using these techniques would quickly get one skewered. It’s the kind of swordplay that makes films like the aforementioned Captain Blood, 1940′s The Sea Hawk and The Princess Bride such swashbuckling classics – and those are good examples of how these fights are staged, a method sometimes referred to as Flynning. Guess why.

“But enough talk! Have at you!”

This isn’t to say that it looks terribly fake. Outside of the occasional set or lighting error, Robin Hood looks great all around. While the costuming’s probably not terribly historically accurate, it’s quite sumptuous and atmospheric, and being shot in Technicolor, everything’s got a bit of a bright sheen on it. And while the aforementioned sword fights aren’t necessarily realistic, they don’t look bad at all, either. Hell, Basil Rathbone was an accomplished fencer as well as a great actor, and he used his skill to make sure he let Errol Flynn have a convincing win!

Whups, sorry, should’ve put a spoiler alert on that one.

Anyway, The Adventures of Robin Hood is a classic that might show its age in places, but has definitely aged gracefully. It’s exciting and fun to watch without being dumb or terribly formulaic, which is more than can be said for a lot of films being made some 70 years later. The cast is charming, the action is well done and the story, while familiar, is told with enough touches of freshness that it’s still interesting after repeated viewings. I say give it a look. If you have already seen it, I have to ask this one question: Where the hell did the phrase “lusty infant” come from?

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

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Among other things, The Departed hammers home the lesson of not judging a book by its cover. For a long time, I considered Leonardo DiCaprio an actor that got by on looks rather than talent. Mostly this was due to how unimpressed I was by the acting in general in Titanic. That happened in a period in his career that saw him in the midst of what the media called ‘Leo-mania’. There’s a reason his Wikipedia page doesn’t even mention The Beach except in passing. However, Leo hooked up with some guy named Martin and they started making movies together. I mention this because The Departed is the first film in which I found myself liking Leo as an actor and got the impression that he was just as disenchanted with ‘Leo-mania’ as I was. Against the stone of Scorsese, DiCapro sharpened himself and has definitely gotten back his edge.

The Departed, set in Boston, follows Leo as Billy Costigan, a very smart young man enrolled in the Police Academy with ties to organized crime, and Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan, a guy from South Boston groomed from a young age by Irish mobster Frank Costello to become a mole within the State Police. Billy is selected to go deep undercover, does time in jail and ends up joining Costello’s crew. What emerges from this setup is a tense game of cat-and-mouse, or perhaps ‘rat-against-rat’, as each of these men move into and out of each other’s lives in their disparate goals: Sullivan to further his career by any means necessary, and Costigan to bring Costello to justice.

Look no further than The Departed to see a director using everything at his disposal in a judicious and brilliant way to bring a story to life. Martin Scorsese is one of the most successful and influential of the ‘movie brats’, a label he shares with Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg. He shares with his cinematic brethren a unique style and a penchant for focusing on what was once considered a ‘low’ form of cinema – crime drama. While his resume includes interesting but no less powerful departures from this, such as Cape Fear and The Aviator, but when most people think Scorsese, they think Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, Casino and Gangs of New York. The Departed is classic Scorsese, steeped in his style and themes, even if it takes place in Boston instead of his usual New York.

“Feels like something’s missing. Like the Empire State Building. Or a decent pizza joint.”

The city of Boston is almost a character in and of itself in this movie. The neighborhoods, ancestry and even accents come into play now and again. It’s been tempting to do this review in a Bostonian accent, but I’d probably butcher it pretty horribly and I don’t wanna antagonize Red Sox fans. Anyway, Scorsese captures the essence of a town that’s unashamed of its heritage, proud of its people both good and bad, fully invested in being the best it can be and imbuing her people with that same energy, that same impetus. It’s this energy that permeates The Departed and brings out the best in its cast.

I mentioned Leo in the intro because, as I said, he’s very likable in this movie. Many of his actions as one of Frank’s guys are not very nice, but this is a man driven to do what he feels is necessary to get his job done. His dedication is admirable and the stress it places on him is telling. He’s exceedingly, painfully human. So to is Matt Damon, and while his stiffness might be partially due to his acting in general, it could also be attributed to his character’s discomfort around people in true authority and fear of being found out. One of the best decisions Scorsese made, however, was in letting Jack Nicholson off of his leash. As Frank Costello, Jack needs to portray a smart, charismatic and completely unpredictable man used to both the trappings and abuse of power. Scorsese let Nicholson improvise a lot of his scenes, to the point where even Leo didn’t know what to expect of him.

However, if you were to look up “scene-stealing” in the dictionary, don’t be surprised if you see the face of Mark Wahlberg. Never has the phrase “jerk with a heart of gold” so accurately described a character as it does his Staff Sergeant Dignam. Verbally abusive, quick to anger and uninterested in making friends, Dignam is still every bit as dedicated to justice as Costigan and, if you follow his arc all the way through to the end of the film, shows his true colors as a man who forges deep bonds with those he works with in undercover policing. He looks up to Martin Sheen’s Captain Queenan and sees Costigan as something of a protege, a fellow warrior in the trenches. He’s not afraid to pull punches with Billy but he’ll have the man’s back one hundred and ten percent when anybody else even mentions coming close to him. Couple this complexity with authentic Bostonian bluster and charm as well as Wahlberg’s own surprising screen presence and you have what Tropers would call an “Ensemble Darkhorse,” a somewhat minor character who will run away with your total allegiance if you’re not careful.

All of these characters are woven into an excellently paced story. The Departed is a remake on a Hong Kong crime thriller called Internal Affairs, but as I mentioned, this film of Scorsese’s becomes so steeped in Boston that it’s likely a different animal entirely. I haven’t seen Internal Affairs myself, but comparing the two would probably be an interesting exercise, and I’d have to watch this film again, gee darn. If there was any doubt in your mind that this is a superlative film, look at the accolades it’s won. If nothing else, it finally won Scorsese an Academy Award as a director, along with itself winning for Best Picture of 2006, and earning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker and writer William Monahan Oscars as well. Scorsese is quoted as saying that this film won after being nominated so many times, not because he deserved it after a lifetime of cinematic achievement, but because The Departed was “the first movie I’ve done with a plot.”

Yes, that’s Alec Baldwin in there. Did I mention this cast is excellent?

In summary, The Departed is one of those rare films that delivers on every level possible. It may seem like a by-the-numbers crime drama at first to some, but with the richness of its characters, the invasive nature of the setting, the canny directing and taut writing, it quickly shows itself to stand on its own. There’s a weight of realism to this story, no particular performance tears us away from being immersed in it and Scorsese’s directing never breaks pace to keep us a part of it. If I were asked on the street to briefly deliver a recommendation for The Departed, I’d have to paraphrase Movie Bob once again: “You hafta ask?? It’s Scorsese! Getcher ass on Netflix and get this movie!”

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.