Whether the United States is the global equivalent of a justified policeman, a sanctimonious criminal, or a muddled combination of the two is personally explored in the narrative of The Departed through the lives of two Massachusetts State Policemen, one of whom is posing as a criminal (Leonardo DiCaprio) while the other (Matt Damon) is quite genuinely integrated into mob boss, Frank Costello's (Jack Nicholson) crime syndicate. In Scorsese's opening sequence, Costello, bestowing advice unto a young Colin Sullivan, declares, “When I was your age they used to say you could become cops or criminals. What I'm saying to you is this...When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?” In terms of war, Costello's “what's the difference?” simultaneously validates and condemns America's self-superior and noble interference in the political schemas of foreign countries by casting the nation as the amalgamation of gallant and morally negotiable intentions.

Besides parallels between the sentiments of the American public and the thematic preoccupations of the film, The Departed makes direct references to the prevailing paranoia about terrorism today and to the current and possible political agendas of the future United States. In Captain Queenan's (Martin Sheen) speech of narrative exposition to William Costigan (DiCaprio) early on, Queenan announces “We (The United States) will probably be at war with the Chinese in twenty-odd years and Costello is selling a military technology.” Special significance should be attributed to the fact that it is this particular crime, the obtaining and bartering of United States military technology, for which Costello is most vilified. The initial stakeout and sting operation performed by the Special Investigation Unit (to which the corrupt Sullivan gets promoted) is not concerned with the murders that Scorsese allows the audience to see Costello commit or the drugs being peddled by his number one, Mr. French (Ray Winstone).

Instead the focus centers on Costello's apparent betrayal of American, terrorist paranoia, namely his selling of military microprocessors. Even though the sting operation fails and Costello and his Chinese buyers appear to have made their transaction without a hitch, Scorsese directs The Departed to satisfy American patriotism by revealing that not even Costello, in his unadulterated wickedness could deliver military secrets into the hands of a foreign government. By arranging for Costello to double-cross his Chinese buyers, Scorsese serves two purposes; He maintains Costello's villainous persona while concurrently preserving America's safety from retribution, deserved or not, from a foreign threat.

Costello's importance to the narrative as a villain cannot be overstated, considering the values for which he stands, and considering that he is the antithesis of the “Serve and Protect” SIU that he has infiltrated. The Irish mob boss begins the film in voice over with his perverse interpretation of the “American Dream.” Over newsreel footage of the race riots in Boston “some years ago,” Frank Costello declares, “I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me…Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency…No one gives it to you. You have to take it.” In the very next scene, Scorsese shows Costello in his neighborhood “shaking down” a local grocery store clerk, essentially taking “it.”

From that moment on, Costello's role in the narrative is to force his reading of the American Dream upon as many people as possible and it becomes up to those people to discover their identity within Costello's greedy interpretation. Costello alternately advises Sullivan and Costigan in his way of thinking, passing along such mantras and insights as “A man has to make his own way,” and “I haven't needed the money since I took Archie's milk money in third grade. And to tell you the truth I don't need pussy anymore either…But I like it.” Sullivan and Costigan, the respective recipients of this skewed advice, represent opposing values while sharing similar identities.

Sullivan, Costello's deceitful, conniving, SIU mole operates toward personal ends and embodies the ardent pursuer of personal wealth who characteristically views America's policing of the world as a right by a survival of the fittest attitude. Costigan, the equally deceitful, conflicted “rat” in Costello's crew sacrifices personal time and ambition in order to serve the commonwealth, channeling the modern counterculture, which objects to the United States occupation of Iraq as well as the American government's self-appointed duty to bring democracy to the rest of the world. Though strikingly similar, Sullivan's and Costigan's relevant deception of SIU and Frank Costello differ most decidedly in whom each deceives and whom each believes he is deceiving.

William Costigan initially believes he is misleading no one. As a cadet at the Police Academy, Costigan (like Sullivan) genuinely performs well enough to be assigned to SIU's Undercover Department. In his first council with Captain Queenan and Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), Dignam ridicules Costigan's tragic lineage and speculates as to why he joined the state police. Immediately afterwards Queenan alleges about his department, “We deal in deception here. What we do not deal with is self-deception.” The “here” that the captain refers to is of course SIU, which acts as the upholder of, even if not the participator in [as evidenced by Dignam and Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin)], the moral standard of America and consequently the ethical voice of The Departed. With that ethical voice, Queenan condemns self-deception. Costigan generally heeds Captain Queenan's warning and identifies for much of the film with neither cop nor criminal.

After a year of undercover work, his behavioral deception takes its toll on him and Costigan, in a heated exchange with Dignam proclaims, “I can't be someone else every fucking day.” The statement supports Costigan's avoidance of the perilous self-deception, yet once Costigan is officially retired from having to deceive Costello and his crew as well as everyone outside of Queenan and Dignam, Costigan betrays Queenan's warning. After steadfastly declaring to Sullivan in their first meeting late in the film, “Being a cop's not an identity. I want my identity back,” Costigan attempts to arrest Sullivan, contradicting what he knows to not be his identity. Reassuming the cop role after Queenan's warning and his own declaration, Costigan is not permitted to survive The Departed.

Sullivan too, must deceive everyone, even Costello, the man he had been most loyal to since the film's first sequence. He deceives his unit, his employers, his father figure, Costigan, and his fiancé, but like Costigan, Sullivan's most menacing moments of deception occur when he allows is personal ambitions to deceive himself. Sullivan often looks to the State Senate on Beacon Hill in the film, minimally but effectively expressing his desire to become an ever-important authority figure in an institution that ideally exists to uphold the moral fiber of American values. The problem with this of course is that Sullivan is morally negotiable and not ideally dependable in his ethical ideology.

Sullivan seems always trying to convince himself that he can attain this status even through his whole-hearted acceptance of Costello's perversion of the American Dream. The ultimate deception of himself comes after Costigan's murder, when Sullivan attempts to assume the power to judge the moral integrity of another, by recommending Costigan for the Medal of Merit. Two scenes later, Dignam, the last man remaining from SIU (besides Captain Ellerby) executes Sullivan in the same way that Costigan was killed.

Scorsese's denunciation of the perverse interpretation of the American Dream as well as the importance of defining oneself within it, is well supported through the narrative events of The Departed. Scorsese interestingly pardons neither Sullivan nor Costigan for his transgressions of duality. However, the ultimate triumph is still enjoyed by the morally upstanding who aspire to punish the wicked.

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With a spine-tingling plot that equals The Ring, the Pang brothers spin a terrifying web about a girl named Mun (Angelica Lee) who has an eye operation and suddenly acquires a third eye and the unwanted ability to see dead people. Sounds familiar? But with the Pang Brother's excellent story telling skills and wonderful shots, the movie has been a huge success in Thailand and other parts of Asia.

Take Two: Gothika screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez has been tapped to do the US version of The Eye.

The Grudge

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Audiences thought they'd seen all the Asian horror movies, then came Ju-On, or as it more popularly known, The Grudge. Takashi Shimizu wrote and directed this chilling story about a vengeful spirit who inhabits a house. Anyone who enters the house is tracked down by the cursed of the Ju-On.
Take Two: Shimizu still remains at the helm of the American version, still set in Japan and which has TV's vampire slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role.

Infernal Affairs

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One of the biggest movies in Asia is a cop story about the never-ending war between the police and the triads of Hong Kong. There's a cop who infiltrates Hong Kong triad; and a triad spy who pretends to be a cop and has moved up the ranks. It's a cat-and-mouse game as both undercover agents try to find out each other's identities. Its one of those movies every serious film buff ought to watch.

Take Two: This award-winning film has caught the attention of many Hollywood players when it came out in 2002. Big names like Brad Pitt (who's one of the producers) and director Martin Scorsese are just some of the people behind the US-version, called The Departed. Matt Damon and Leo Di Caprio are rumored to be taking on the lead roles.

Let me break the silence and tell it. He is Martin Scorcese. Surprised! Yeah he is the real gangster who has provided us with the best criminal minded movies of all time. It just gets better for him from one film to another. There has not been any comparison to Goodfellas till this date and even Godfather is considered lower than this. The latest by him “The Departed” is also one of the classics which you are not gonna forget for a long time. Just watch it and then analyze. I will leave you with this much of motivation to watch his movies as I am die-hard fan of his movies. You will know why ?.

What really intrigued me about the movie was the script. I have never listened to a more continuous, repetitive and concentrated recital of four letter words, or ‘cuss words’ as they are called, as I did when viewing The Departed. In fact, if the script of the movie were to be subjected to a keyword analysis, these wonderful byproducts of the English language would romp home with a triumphant 75% density, with one particular expression, if one can call it that, taking a 95% lead over its siblings. The movie’s characters seemed to be speechless wonders who found it necessary to prefix and suffix almost every word and every action with these verbal gems.

The script of a mafia-cop story can hardly be expected to be a literary masterpiece. This is not My Fair Lady or Pride and Prejudice. Mafia hoodlums and cops speak less and shoot more, but that they would have such a limited vocabulary was somewhat surprising. One can even understand the four-letter fascination of the Boston mob, but that the education of the police force seems to have not gone beyond ‘abcd’ does seem a little intriguing.

But then, on the plus side, think of the advantages of such dialogue. The scriptwriters have no need to torture themselves trying to get appropriate words to express each emotion, or bury their heads in a thesaurus to hit on the exact etymological fit for any situation. The big plus with swear words is that they are multipurpose tools, they are like those homeowner’s all-in-one implements on telemarketing programs which can be used to do a mind-boggling variety of jobs. You can use a four-letter word to denote shock, frustration, disappointment, anger, irritation, amazement, boredom and a host of other feelings. Further, within the same emotion, there may be a variety of shades of intensity which normally need to be represented in a script; if, for example, a policeperson is irritated, he or she may actually be annoyed, irked, exasperated, piqued, impatient or grumpy. Or, if the mafia don is angry, he could be experiencing any of the numerous sentiments in the spectrum of anger such as enraged, incensed, displeased, offended, infuriated, or plain hopping mad. But, with one four letter word used as a synonym for all of these and more, the script writing function becomes so very easy and uncomplicated- you have said everything without splurging on words.

The actors, I’m sure, love the new methodology because they have to memorize so little dialogue, and even if they forget, they can say ‘abcd’ and be always in character. There is of course the additional bonus – the reader gets to figure out precisely what the character is expressing when he uses the expletive, so there you are, an extra interactive dimension of mystery and suspense added without any effort, and giving the viewer so much more for his money!

The only person in The Departed with a vocabulary of sorts is the police psychologist; but, tossed as she is eventually between the real policemen a.k.a false Mafioso and false policeman a.k.a real Mafioso, she seems to have more confusion to sort out for herself than for others. And, finally, at the end of her tether, she too succumbs to the lingua franca of the rest of the cast.

And I thought –‘The movie has made its point!’

"The Prestige" -- boasting a heavyweight cast composed of Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, David Bowie, Piper Perabo, and Andy "Gollum" Serkis -- is a tale of two rival magicians (Bale as Alfred Border and Jackman as Ruper Angier) who plied their trade in London around the turn of the century. Their fierce competition turns increasingly dangerous, prompting Angier's mentor (played by M. Caine) to suspect that Border has real magical powers.

What makes this film interesting is that both Jackman and Bale have recently played comic book heroes: as Wolverine and Batman, respectively. The Prestige, based on a 1995 book bearing the same title, alludes to the residue that remains after a magician has successfully performed his trick.

The same dual dilemma is also evident in "The Departed", which topbills Jack Nicholson as mob boss Frank Costello. A remake of the popular 2002 Hong Kong thriller "Internal Affairs", the movie also features Leonardio DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, etc.

DiCaprio stars as an uncover cop (Billy Costigan) who infiltrates the criminal syndicate headed by Costello, in a parallel move with Matt Damon (Colin Sullivan), a criminal figure who joins the police force as a "mole" for the mob. Both undergo intense stress and fine-tuned tightrope walking as they gather information for their respective sides without divulging their real identities.

Incidentally, this movie also marks the third time that Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorcese have worked together.

Judging from the trailers of both movies, it looks like October is going to be a worthwhile month for moviegoers. The weighty names being bandied about and the high-caliber directors who are crafting these films should be a sufficient magnet for fans of both genres.