Miami Herald critic Rene Rodriguez has seen Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed here in Toronto, and he’s calling it “class-A pulp…grave, resonant, psychologically complex and acted to the skies.”
And that’s not all: “Anyone who’s been waiting for Scorsese to return to form after the Oscar-baiting turgidness of The Aviator and Gangs of New York won’t be disappointed,” he’s written. “This is Scorsese’s best and most invigorating work since the underrated Casino, if not GoodFellas, as well as his most sheerly entertaining.”
If Rodriguez is on the money, then what is Warner Bros. publicity’s problem? They’ve got something that allegedly works on a feisty-pulpy crime-movie level and yet they send out signals left and right that it’s got issues, that they’re concerned about reactions (as indicated by a clear reluctance to show it), that “it’s not a festival movie,” etc.?
Rodriguez’s view is just the first word and he may end up 180 degrees apart from the eventual general consensus (or not), but if he’s right WB publicity has created a totally unnecessary neg-head smokescreen about this film.
If on the other hand what Rodriguez is saying appears in hindsight to have been a bit too breathless, then what WB has been doing makes sense…I guess….but this is becoming more and more fascinating by the minute.