The Departed Disappoints

Martin Scorcese's "Departed" is a good movie. But it was rather pale comparted to his classic "Goodfellas". Some problems:

The movie had no sense of humor. Goodfellas had a sense of humor. Jack Nicholson had a little sense of humor, but not as much as he usually has. This movie could have been improved by Nicholson giving his famous "Herrrrrrre's Johnny..." line. That would have gone well with the squirting gore. I didn't think he was that believable as a mafia kingpin.

DiCaprio is unconvincing as a tough guy. He tries too hard. Real tough guys don't have to try hard to be tough.

There's too much wanton violence, and it's not very believable. Goodfellas only had a limited amount of violence, but it was very believable. The murderers also had some serious concerns about getting caught. They didn't just walk around and murder everyone in sight without being the slightest bit concerned about getting caught. It's not really THAT easy to murder people and not get caught, even if you're a big mafiosi.

The plot was a bit illogical. For example, Jack Nicholson picked up Matt Damon from his graduation ceremony at the police academy. Duh. And no police officers were supposed to have noticed THAT? Matt Damon gets picked up at graduation by a Mafia kingpin in a stretch limo and none of the guys in the police mafia unit are going to notice THAT? They are still going to consider Matt Damon to be squeeky clean? Highly unlikely. Police officers aren't idiots. They notice things like that.

Another problem was that DiCaprio and Damon look too much alike. There was one chase scene where DiCaprio was following Damon, but they both looked so much alike that I couldn't tell who was who.

But all in all, it was a pretty good movie. It just wasn't a classic.