The Departed

Time : Tuesday, 17 October 2006 16.30
Venue : Corner of the office, behind piles of papers
Ambiance : A lazy, quiet, and dull afternoon

Pff, so it's 4.30 PM, and I'm the only soul here. Besides the janitor, of course. Office life has been sluggish these days.

So yesterday I went to see "The Departed" with a bunch of friends. As usual, I already had with me a scoop of what the critics had to say about the movie. Some quotes: "Scorsese won't be winning any Oscars for this movie, as it's too hard, too pulpy, and too good. A relentlessly violent, breathtakingly assured piece of mean-streets filmmaking, the film shows the legendary director dropping the bids for industry respectability that have preoccupied him over the past decade and doing what he does best: burrow to the agonized heart of criminality and let the blood and guilt splatter where they may."

Well, at least the critics gave you a fair warning. It was a movie with incessant scenes of heads got blown away here and there. Not a novelty from a Scorsese's, of course. But I was a little irritated with his head fetish, indeed when Wahlberg blew Damon's sorry brain off, I bellowed at the screen: Hey, give us something fresh and shoot the guy in the chest!

I heard that "The Departed" is actually a remake from the Hongkongese "Infernal Affairs". It's not a bad remake, but I hope that this does not signify that Hollywood is running out of original ideas, or worse, losing talents to make them better.