At the movies

It’s increasingly rare that I see a movie that I enjoy so much I’m still thinking about how much I enjoyed it the next day. Happy to report that The Departed is such a movie. It was so enjoyable that when I got home I put on Goodfellas just to watch more Scorsese.

The Departed is Goodfellas except instead of Italian-American gangsters, it’s Irish-American cops. That’s all you need to know. And Jack Nicholson is giant ham. The first few minutes are all Jack’s and he’s a hoot.

Everybody’s good in it: DeCaprio, Damon, Alec Baldwin (!) And I think it’s finally safe to say that Mark Wahlberg is a really good actor, without having to follow it by the words “No, really, I’m serious”. He’s terrific in this. I’ve liked Mark Wahlberg since Boogie Nights but I’ve always felt rather guilty about it, but no more.

And being a Scorsese movie, it has a few great-looking shots and terrific music. Great script, too. For once, my lousy memory served me well. I’d seen the original Hong Kong version, but because I can’t retain anything in this brain of mine, I didn’t remember any of the twists and turns of the plot, so I was surprised all over again. Hurray for bad memory.