The Departed

The Departed is the latest Martin Scorsese offering and is a remake of the Chinese film Infernal Affairs which was released recently.

I loved the original so much that I saw it twice in the cinema and once on dvd and so was pretty sceptical about it being remade, even if Scorsese was the director taking on the project.

In the remade version Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio play the stooge cops and Jack Nicholson is the Don. The gangs are Irish American mafia gangs based in South Boston but the basic storyline of infiltration and subterfuge was kept and expanded upon.

Despite knowing the original story so well I found myself at the edge of my seat while watching this movie. DiCaprio did a magnificant job in convincing you of the vulnerability and sadness of his character and Damon was perfectly sleazy and dirty to the point where I shuddered when he was on screen. As for Nicholson he's sublime in this role it was made for him and he plays it to perfection.

Children of Men

I'm not a massive fan of Clive Owen as an actor, but as a fan of sci-fi in general I thought that the premise for this movie looked interesting and decided to have a look despite the Clive Owen involvement.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

The story is set in the not too distant future, in a world that has fallen into anarchy and open warfare. And to top it all off, women are no longer able to produce children. In this world of the future, Britain is attempting to maintain a semblence of the status quo and law order by strictly inforcing anti refugee laws. As a result the state establishes camps for the extradition of illegal immigrants which, in reality are no better than concentration camps.

In the middle of the mayhem, terrorist bombs and general dissoloution of society we meet our hero. He is an alcoholic, middle aged government pen pusher, who used to be a radical. His story as it progresses is an interesting and engaging one and by a process of the reappearance of people from his past he is drawn into a plan to save the life of a refugee who has miraculously fallen pregnant.

Clive Owen is fantastic in this film, however it is Michael Cain who steals the show, again.

If you like a bit of sci-fi and a good thriller then I would recommend this as a good movie to go see.