comment #1

EDouglas says ...

Because reading decent dialogue with an exagerrated Boston accent is Oscar worthy. Oh, right... Tim Robbins/Mystic River.

comment #2

VedaPierce says ...

As if this is enough to excuse his unrivaled awfulness in Planet of the Apes.

comment #3

JD says ...

If you ask me, Warner Bros has made a complete mess of The Departed's "for your considerations." Personally, I think they should have simplified their campaign to Dicaprio for best actor and Jack Nicholson for best supporting actor. I think both would have viable chances in those categories, but putting Nicholson up for best actor is totally fruitless, as is the utterly nutty idea that Wahlberg or Baldwin deserve awards consideration for such one-note, largely comical supporting performances. They do a good job, but those are utterly generic stock characters. Then again, supporting actor and supporting actress have proven to be pretty ridiculous categories in the past. I guess anything's possible.

comment #4

EDouglas says ...

I agree JD...the fact the Warner Bros Awards site just listed "Actors" with everyone in it left it to people who had no idea how to differentiate the categories. Leo and Matt are leads in the film, you could say Jack is too...everyone else is supporting. Vera Farmiga as the only woman should have gotten a supporting because she's as good or better than any of the men in the movie.

comment #5

Mark says ...

He nails every word throughout, and is very enjoyable, but it's quite a superficial part. A lot of front, little substance. If the movie was not a Best Picture contender, and on the level of say Glengary Glenross, Boiler Room, or Swingers, there's no way that he would be in the conversation.

comment #6

Melquiades says ...

The Supporting awards are often given to scene-stealers. Judi Dench was in Shakespeare in Love for 8 minutes but she won the award because she friggin' owned the screen for those 8 minutes.

Everybody who's seen The Departed has singled out Wahlberg as one of the film's highlights. He took a very small role and turned it into one of the most memorable parts of the film. When he's onscreen, you absolutely eat it up. When he's not, you miss him. That's why he's a worthy nominee.

comment #7

Melquiades says ...

Speaking of Glengary Glen Ross, if ever somebody deserved a Supporting Actor for one scene, it was Alec Baldwin in that film.

Wahlberg deserved to be nominated for I Heart Huckabees as well, so this could be considered a make-up nomination.

comment #8

bipedalist says ...

"Because reading decent dialogue with an exagerrated Boston accent is Oscar worthy. Oh, right... Tim Robbins/Mystic River." LOL. As if you'd know good writing! You have terrible taste in films. Fan boy up one side and down the other.

You won't hear better dialogue anywhere, spoken better, written better. The movie is so good, it's beyond good. Anyone who thinks it's "just okay" should see it again. And then again. And one more time just to catch everything.

"Do you think we're cunts?"

comment #9

bipedalist says ...

Oh and p.s. Wahlberg is from South Boston, I do believe. FROM THERE. But he's faking his accent. Yeah.

comment #10

Undercover Brother says ...

I have trouble accepting this as possible, but yeah, the perpetually placid one, Mark 'Wallpaper' Wahlberg held his own in that film. And even managed to stand out. If he gets a nom, good for him. But winning, that may be too much. We can't live in a world where Marky Mark has the same number of Oscars as Al Pacino.

comment #11

Mark says ...

I'd have no problem living in a world where Dirk Diggler has the same number of Oscars as Mr. Pacino. No problem at all...
Seriously, no sleep would be lost.
Nada.
The sun would rise.

comment #12

austin111 says ...

After having seen the film for a second time yesterday, I have to say that Wahlberg absolutely created a great character. First of all it's an amazing ensemble piece if ever there was one. The Departed is about great acting from top to bottom. I've rarely seen a film where almost everyone stands out when you pay attention. Wahlberg and Sheen are quite a pair in the film -- Dignam is the profane little prick who gets to insult, bully and badger potential undercover candidates into doing an awful job they might never have considered, while Queenan sits by placidly acting the good guy who's trying to keep him at bay. And Wahlberg has never been better than he is here --a tough nut who likely came up through the ranks and who sees through the brown nosing Colin (Damon) almost immediately. And his timing is pretty impeccable especially going up against Baldwin in a few scenes. So, yeah, why not?

comment #13

bipedalist says ...

I love the scene where Dignam goes after Sullivan (Damon) and Sullivan's cool reserve finally cracks. The theme of father and son, good son/bad son, good father/bad father runs all through the movie. Costello is "father" to Sullivan and Costigan; Queenan is "father" to Dignam and Costigan. Then you have the fathers in the church. Costigan's real departed father, the only other good guy out there. And another son on the way to be being born. Kind of cool, that.

comment #14

EveHarrington says ...

"Hey, go save a kitten in a tree, you fuckin' homos."

Did someone up there just compare it with *Boiler Room* and *Swingers*? And poor Glengarry Glen Ross sits in that line-up with all the dignity of an innocent man dragged into the pokey on a trumped up child molestation charge.

comment #15

Hejla says ...

I've seen it three times now, and I think it's "just okay." One of the biggest dissapointments for me was that I was really expecting the acting to be great across the board. I was expecting to see several very good performances. The only one who delivered was Dicaprio who deserves a lot of credit. The rest of the cast? Not so much. The performances ranged from mediocre and predictable (Damon, Sheen, Baldwin) to underwritten (Farmiga) to over-the-top and silly (Wahlberg) to terrible (Nicholson).

Having said that, I do think Wahlberg has a lot of talent and I absolutely loved his performance in I Heart Huckabees.

comment #16

austin111 says ...

Yep, the father/son dichotomy runs strong here. One scene I somewhat overlooked in first viewing was when Costello tells Costigan that his father was actually one of the honest ones, a good guy. The look on DiCaprio's face says it all.

comment #17

vansmith says ...

I liked Alec Baldwin, his speeches to the troops were great and when he asked the guy if he wanted to go out and smoke and then said 'you're one of those healthy types right, go fuck yourself.' and commenting on damon wearig a ring, 'yeah at least somebody can stand you.' best screenplay oscar by FAR...the thing about the movie is the whole cast really felt they were in something good,everyone was amped up, looking forward to the dvd extras...

comment #18

The Movie Man says ...

I still think that, of the two leads, Damon has the more interesting performance, and, of the supporters,Ray Winstone is the one to watch. I'm not saying this to be cool or just to be a dissenter, but that was my take. I enjoyed the entire cast's work though.

comment #19

vansmith says ...

How about Damon playing the Wahlberg role, that would have been interesting because Damon is always cool, seeing him play over the top agressive would have been different...Winstone was good to, shit im going to see it again!!!

comment #20

bipedalist says ...

"Yep, the father/son dichotomy runs strong here. One scene I somewhat overlooked in first viewing was when Costello tells Costigan that his father was actually one of the honest ones, a good guy. The look on DiCaprio's face says it all."

Yeah, that was the scene that stuck with me too upon subsequent viewings. That's the only time, really, that Costello contemplates the good/evil thing. It's the moment where he feels most fatherly towards him and believes him to be better than the others - and he says, "you ever think about going college?" And Costigan says no and Frank says, "when are you gonna wake the fuck up." I love that scene.

(spoiler)

Also, did you notice that those two guys who are there at the end are right there at the beginning, paired up with Sullivan and Costigan? That was something I noticed after a few viewings.

comment #21

bipedalist says ...

p.s. if you thought it was "just okay" why did you see it three times? Were you trying to discover what everyone thought was so great about it?

comment #22

Mark says ...

EveHarrington: Great line about the dignaty of an innocent man. Why waste your time here, when you could easily write for a Law and Order show? Maybe the one with Ice T?

What I said though was that The Departed was a level above Boiler Room and Swingers, but these latter movies are still very watchable cuz of some slick dialouge with guys just busting each other's balls. Despite The Departed being the better movie, Dignam's character does not rise above, or have more substance, than say Vaughn in Swingers or Diesel/Affleck in Boiler Room. It's just a well executed one-note show.

(and don't confuse a great movie with a great play re: glengary.)

comment #23

DavidF says ...

In the first scene with Wahlberg and Sheen I remember thinking that they were playing good cop/bad cop. As the movie went on I realized, "Nah - Wahlberg's character really just IS that big and belligerent a prick!"

He kicked ass.

That said, my singular problem with The Departed (currently my Bes Pic fave):
How come when DiCaprio comes in for his interview Sheen and Wahlberg have him ABSOLUTELY pegged. They know his history, they know his psych profile to a tee.
And yet they somehow have no clue about Damon being best buds with the massive criminal they are trying to nail. That was the one plot hole I had to swallow to make the film work. Heck, I even assumed they DID know about Damon and were watching him but even as things went bad they somehow never mustered the research that might have, say, showed him growing up in Nicholson's backyard, to say nothing of Jack showing up at his graduation, virtually in plain sight.

Still,to sum up:
Best movie I've seen this year (along with Children of Men) and it'd be nice to see Wahlberg get a nom because he was better than he had any right to be - he stole every second of screentime he was in - right up to the last second of the film.

comment #24

Hejla says ...

"p.s. if you thought it was "just okay" why did you see it three times? Were you trying to discover what everyone thought was so great about it?"

I like movies, so even if I don't love something the first time I'll gladly give it a second viewing as long as it's not something really terrible. You never know how your opinion might change over time. So when I'd already seen it, but a friend wanted to go, I didn't mind seeing it again. The third time I saw it on an airplane coming back from Europe.

The first time I saw it I really liked Wahlberg's performance, but it just didn't hold up on subsequent viewings.

comment #25

austin111 says ...

Interesting thing about this movie is how much discussion it still provokes. My take on Damon v. Wahlberg -- Damon isn't nasty enough to play that role. Not that he couldn't have tried, mind you, but he doesn't have enough of the prickish bulldog quality that Wahlberg brought in(after all, Wahlberg spent time in prison, really; Damon went to Haaarrrvahd). Why couldn't Queenan/Dignam have figured out that Colin was the snitch? Maybe it just never occurred to them since he was such an up and comer. Perhaps they might have assumed that a true snitch would be much more lowkey, less likely to draw attention to himself. Still, it sometimes appeared that maybe Dignam had a notion about Colin to me...distrusting his brown nosing. He certainly wasted no time taking him down in the end.

comment #26

slothroplt says ...

Not to get all literary on y'all but Mark Wahlberg was FUCKIN' AWESOME in Huckabees.

comment #27

austin111 says ...

Personally thought Wahlberg pretty BLAH in Huckabees but then I thought the whole movie was a waste of time.

comment #28

The Movie Man says ...

Wahlberg's effectiveness in The Departed shouldn't be a huge surprise. In the right material and director he's very strong (Boogie Nights, I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings, and, no joke, Fear). Wahlberg is one of those actors that usually can't transcend bad or boring material or an impersonal director. He's talented but needs guidance, otherwise, well, see everything else he's in besides what I've mentioned (I thought he was especially boring in The Italian Job, but that movie was a bore all across the board.)