Like I said earlier, note to self: Review a movie AS SOON as you finish watching it damn it! Else, you're faced with what I'm facing now: Having seen all 3 of the above over a weekend or to be precise, several weekends ago, they now exist as random, out-of-sequence snapshots in my head. So, I need to tap into residual feelings and hazy memories in summing up my thoughts of them:
The Departed sees Martin Scorsese back at his gangbusting, guns blazing, profanity spewing best. And yet, it suffers in comparison to its original, HK crime flick Infernal Affairs. I racked my brains throughout viewing this flick, wondering why, in spite of a dream cast that's also perfectly cast (Leo exhibiting intense, nervous energy, Matt Damon in slippery form, Jack Nicholson in full out scenery chewing mode and an incendiary Mark Wahlberg taking over Joe Pesci as The Foulest Mouth On Screen) I was merely entertained rather than shaking with delirious sweaty palmed excitement that Scorcese has abandoned turn of the century gang warfare and biopics of eccentric billionaires to return to familiar turf. It dawned on me later why. The Departed is big, flashy and loud. But the story it seeks to tell is in effect an intimate one.
Infernal Affairs was as much about identity as it was a crime thriller. It's tale of a gangster's man who infiltrates the police department and an undercover cop who weans his way into the gangster's confidence was knuckle-biting cat and mouse stuff which also took time out to focus on its 2 protagonists' angst at maintaining their dual-facade, especially Tony Leung's tortured undercover cop,his mole assignment known only to his immediate superior and living in perennial fear that his cover will be blown. The roof of a building, which is a frequent meeting point between Leung and his superior, also functions as metaphor to his alienation from the life he wishes he had as he frequently stares across it's vacant expanse at the sprawling city below which reinforces his isolation and sense of dislocation.
In The Departed, the roof is merely a functionary device, a backdrop, a setting much like any other. Leo's meetings with Charlie Sheen and Wahlberg(his superiors) could just as easily have been conducted in a bar and his final showdown with Damon could have taken place in a vacant parking lot.
The Departed required subtle brush strokes, but Scorcese splashes paint across a canvas far too big for this taut and intimate tale. But the fact that it's done so by a Returning Master is reason enough for jubilation.
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Michael Mann doesn't so much return as continue his cynical and relentlessly brutal dissection of a dystopian world peopled with hard-edged professionals, be they cops or criminals. It's drenched in his by now patented blue hue, giving it a cold and calculating sheen, much like it's ice-cool characters. But why hobble the movie with a connection to his stylish 80s TV series? For, never was a movie more handicapped by its title. Anyone expecting this to be yet another big screen version of a once hot TV show is bound to howl in rage. The key characters bearing their small screen predecessors' names is about the only nod this movie makes to its original incarnation. Which in itself is a miss step for Mann. Why should this Vice bear any resemblance to the original when this Mann himself bears no resemblance to the creator of a glossy TV show that increasingly sacrificed substance for style.?This Mann is now an ace crafter of cool as ice crime dramas that marry style with substance in ways the show could only have dreamed of. Miami Vice the movie is a logical progression from Heat and Collateral. Its characters could be called anything instead of Crockett,Tubbs, Castillo, Gina and Trudy. It could have been titled anything instead of Miami Vice. While a passing familiarity with the original source material usually enhances the viewing pleasure of a remake, this is one instance when a complete memory wipe of Miami Vice the TV show becomes essential to fully appreciate Miami Vice the movie. It's not merely the deconstruction of a TV show, it's the evolution of Mann.
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And finally Layer Cake, the weakest and yet strangely, the most enjoyable of this trio of blood soaked crime flicks. Matthew Vaughn who produced the Guy Ritchie directed Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (or as I prefer to collectively title them, The Brits Trying To Do Tarantino Cool) now takes on the helmer's chair for this very British, very gritty and by now very familiar crime drama that seems to come out of the other side of the Atlantic periodically. Like the previous 2 Ritchie flicks, this one features a large cast of characters propelling one central plot which rapidly spider-webs into a dozen others with attitude, humour, menace and copious amounts of swearing draped in Brit lingo and slang which in itself is a joy to hear. The multiple sub-plots are sometimes tightly linked, sometimes loosely connected, occasionally brush off tangentially with one another and rapidly fades from memory minutes after you eject the disk from your player. It's got one major bonus though: a pre-Bond Daniel Craig in top form easily convincing you why he snagged the 007 mantle.
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