Many, many, many years ago, pretty much anyone in Hollywood who was considered a “movie star” was attached to one major studio, cranking out film after film, year after year. Those were the days of contract players; you knew that if it was a Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney picture, it was made at MGM. Errol Flynn buckled his swash for the Warner Bros. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced for RKO.
The rise of the Screen Actors Guild, along with other intervening circumstances, changed all that by the late ’40s. The studios, no longer able to cash in on a stable of top-name talent, had to compete with each other to land the best actors. And that paved the way for the multimillion-dollar deals today’s stars can demand.
That’s what makes it all the more interesting to observe the increasing number of voluntary partnerships that have cropped up in Hollywood in recent years. For example, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney have worked together nine times in eight years. Sam Raimi always finds a role for Bruce Campbell. Christopher Guest and the Coen brothers always draw from their regular troupes. The days of studio loyalty (by choice or not) may be over, but a new trend toward amicable partnerships has brought some of those old-time sensibilities back to the cinema.
Another such example seems to have developed in the collaborations between powerhouse director Martin Scorsese and earnest heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio. The duo has made three movies and is working on a fourth. What’s more, that work together is paying off, with good box-office receipts and a handful of awards. The biggies, of course, are the best movie and best director Oscar nominations for “The Departed.” Mark Wahlberg was nominated in the supporting actor category, and some feel DiCaprio was overlooked for his lead actor role (although he was nominated in that category anyway, for “Blood Diamond”). “The Departed” was also nominated in some writing and technical categories.
The project has already garnered several Golden Globe nominations (and a best director win for Scorsese), and it’s bound to pick up an Academy Award or two at the end of the month. If you missed it in the theaters, you’re in luck: The DVD is set for release Feb. 13 – plenty of time to take in a screening and see what all the buzz is about before Oscar night on the 25th.
DiCaprio stars as Billy Costigan, a Massachusetts state police officer sent undercover to infiltrate the local Irish mafia, headed by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). At the same time, however, Costello has put his own spy within the ranks of the state police – Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon).
Both men work their way to trusted positions of power, feeding information back to their respective handlers. But when both sides confront each other during a botched black-market deal, Sullivan and Costigan each realize there must be a mole on the other side. This begins a cat-and-mouse game as each man tries to determine the identity of his counterpart. The line between right and wrong grows even blurrier as Sullivan and Costigan are in for a surprise about Costello, too.
Scorsese borrows liberally from “Infernal Affairs,” a trilogy of Chinese gangster films featuring a cop and a gangster both wrestling with the pressures of their undercover lives. “The Departed” does a fair job of Americanizing the plot and combines a few characters to streamline the story, without sacrificing the “tale of honor” feel of the original.
Scorsese certainly knows the gangster genre (“Goodfellas,” “Gangs of New York”) and has the clout to pull a fantastic assembly of A-list talent to bring the characters to life. DiCaprio and Damon alone would be enough to sell the film, but the inclusion of Nicholson, Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin makes this a truly stellar cast. If “The Departed” does as well as it deserves at the Oscars, Scorsese would be wise to package this whole group of guys along with favorite son DiCaprio and point them all at his next project.
That said, after a viewing of “The Departed,” you should point yourself directly at Eddie Neill’s new Downtown joint, The Dubliner. This place is a true pub – literally “public house” – in every sense of the word. The food is phenomenal. The kitchen thrives on fresh, local ingredients – the staff butchers the meat and makes authentic Irish-style sausages on the premises, for instance. The fare is wholly Irish; no toasted ravs at the bar, bless ’em. Instead, feast on boxty, bangers and mash, mussels and oysters, and an always-available
Irish breakfast.
But if the food’s not enough to draw you in, there’s live Irish music every weekend, rugby and football (the real kind) on TV pretty much all the time and Irish film nights. (It’s a fair bet “The Departed” will screen there before long.)
This article appears in Jan 1-31, 2007.