Double Feature: The Departed in 35mm + Infernal Affairs
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In our Great Remakes double feature series, see The Departed in 35mm (6:45pm), followed by the movie that inspired it, Infernal Affairs (9:30pm)
The Departed in 35mm at 6:45pm
When Martin Scorsese finally won his Best Director Oscar, it was for a remake. Screenwriter William Monahan combined the plot of Andrew Lau, Alan Mak, and Felix Chong’s Chinese-language thriller Unceasing Path (or Infernal Affairs as it was known in America) with real-life details from notorious Irish-American crime boss Whitey Bulger and the corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, who protected Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang from prosecution. Jack Nicholson plays the Bulger surrogate, Boston mobster Frank Costello. We didn’t know at the time that this would practically be Nicholson’s cinematic swan song (the prolific movie star made only two more films after this one). Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon play rival undercover spies, one infiltrated in Costello’s mob crew and the other within the Massachusetts State Police. Boston native Mark Wahlberg, playing one of DiCaprio’s superiors on the force, gives perhaps the most authentically “Boston performance” in any film set in our fair city. Despite the Oscar, this movie is one of Scorsese’s least prestigious works, but it’s one hell of a fun picture and a real crowd pleaser.
Infernal Affairs at 9:30pm
Far more than just “the film that The Departed was based on,” Infernal Affairs is a cleverly plotted, tight and lean yet operatically staged morality play about a young undercover police officer assigned to infiltrate the local mafia while at the same time a young mafia member becomes a mole in the police force. Directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak deliver as stylish a Hong Kong action thriller as anyone could dream of, with many scenes and extended sequences so thrillingly staged that Martin Scorsese and William Monahan lifted them right out of this picture and cleverly repurposed them for The Departed.
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The Departed in 35mm at 6:45pm
When Martin Scorsese finally won his Best Director Oscar, it was for a remake. Screenwriter William Monahan combined the plot of Andrew Lau, Alan Mak, and Felix Chong’s Chinese-language thriller Unceasing Path (or Infernal Affairs as it was known in America) with real-life details from notorious Irish-American crime boss Whitey Bulger and the corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, who protected Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang from prosecution. Jack Nicholson plays the Bulger surrogate, Boston mobster Frank Costello. We didn’t know at the time that this would practically be Nicholson’s cinematic swan song (the prolific movie star made only two more films after this one). Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon play rival undercover spies, one infiltrated in Costello’s mob crew and the other within the Massachusetts State Police. Boston native Mark Wahlberg, playing one of DiCaprio’s superiors on the force, gives perhaps the most authentically “Boston performance” in any film set in our fair city. Despite the Oscar, this movie is one of Scorsese’s least prestigious works, but it’s one hell of a fun picture and a real crowd pleaser.
Infernal Affairs at 9:30pm
Far more than just “the film that The Departed was based on,” Infernal Affairs is a cleverly plotted, tight and lean yet operatically staged morality play about a young undercover police officer assigned to infiltrate the local mafia while at the same time a young mafia member becomes a mole in the police force. Directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak deliver as stylish a Hong Kong action thriller as anyone could dream of, with many scenes and extended sequences so thrillingly staged that Martin Scorsese and William Monahan lifted them right out of this picture and cleverly repurposed them for The Departed.
Get Tickets
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