Category Archives: crime

This 2004 Hong Kong flick explores what happens when both sides in a running battle between police and a gang of robbers turn to the media for help. Directed by Johnny To and written by Hing-Ka Chan and Tin-Shing Yip, Breaking News is an exciting, thoughtful drama that combines the massive gun battles made so famous in Police Story and Infernal Affairs (remade as last year’s Oscar winning The Departed) with insightful media manipulation for a very strong result.

The lead roles are Richie Ren as the intelligent villain, Kellie Chen as a police commander who seizes the opportunity presented to her and Nick Cheung as the hero and leader of a detective squad who were after Ren’s gang to start with. A street cop takes offense when one of Ren’s men backs a car intended to take them off for a robbery down a one way street the wrong way and, just as this mistake is almost evaded, the cop says the wrong thing and Ren’s crew open fire; Cheung has many men with him but are only able to take down one of the bad guys.

The rest escape into the post-modern urbanity that is 21st century Hong Kong, huge apartment blocks jammed in on top of each other–To gives us the real city rather than the usual polished and clean cinema fantasy. Working block by block Cheung finds the building in which the gang is hidden, and this is when Chen tells him to back off so she can bring a huge SWAT force to complete the capture. Cheung, of course, is pissed and not interested in stepping off after his men have been the target of gales of weapons fire.

Coincidentally a pair of hit men are on the same floor of the building as the apartment where Ren and one of his men have gone to ground, taking a goofy taxi driver and his two small children hostage. Coming together in the crossfire the four have little choice but to join up. Ren and the slightly older brains of the other pair, Yong Yu, find they have much in common and make a final stand together to get away from the cops. Ren, watching the TV coverage, uses his comic hostage family and the Internet to put his own spin on events each time Chen gives the media a police performance.

They do, but neither Cheung nor Chen have given up the pursuit of Ren (they don’t really known who Yu is, though he gets his own offscreen ending). The climax finds all three leads together for the first time and despite being reasonably predictable, the finish was quite satisfying. I didn’t realize until looking over his CV just now, but this is the second film directed by Johnny To I’ve seen and enjoyed in the last year; I wrote up my thoughts on his Full-time Killer last June.

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Having seen the Hong Kong original and being a big fan of Martin Scorsese’s mobster flicks I was doubly anxious to see The Departed. Really, Nicholson, Damon, Wahlberg, DiCaprio, Sheen the Elder, Ray Winstone, even Alec Baldwin slammed together in a devious cops v. robbers matchup, going back to what Scorsese does best. Frankly I never did get Gangs of New York or The Aviator.

Nicholson’s Frank Costello has been running all or a big part of the Irish mob for years and somehow never gotten pinched by the cops, at least in part because he tends to think for the longterm. As an example, he recruits Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) in his early teens, sends him to the Massachuessetts State Police academy and helps him rise rapidly into a position of authority in the Special Investigations Unit.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s William Costigan Jr. also attended the academy, attempting to reject the life trajectory set by the men in his family, of whom only his father had been honest. Yet Captain Queenan (Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Wahlberg, whose foul vocabulary is the antithesis of his angelic face) don’t see that Costigan can evade his fate and so they ask him to go deep undercover. To proof his cover he’s arrested, kicked off the force and spends three months in jail on an assault beef. On release he does everything necessary to get noticed by Costello and get into his crew.

So starts the final conflict that drives The Departed to its climax. Costello finds out he has a rat and Queenan and Captain Ellerby (Baldwin) find out they have a mole, but neither side knows their informer’s identity. Costigan and Sullivan soon understand they’re in a race to find the other first, the winner’s prize is to live.

One thing that Martin Scorsese does very well in his films is ensure the plots and dialog are authentic, logical and consistent. Some movies which may otherwise be enjoyable fall apart for me by leaving gaping unexplained logical flaws or ask us to believe a smart, successful character hasn’t noticed something which is as visible to him or her as to the audience, but Scorsese doesn’t make this mistake.

For the most part the acting here is strong though as usual DiCaprio doesn’t do it for me. Here he’s over the top with anxiety, never seeming more than a few sharp words away from tears, and while his character is certainly in a high stress situation its the one performance that doesn’t ring true; I find it difficult to believe that Nicholson’s mobster, a masterful judge of character, doesn’t take one good look at his face and smell something fishy.

I don’t usually mention the soundtracks of (non-musical) films but the selection here is really special. The standout is Van Morrison’s live version of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Number, taken from The Wall: Live In Berlin concert, which the Irishman makes all his own, and, perhaps as a touchstone to the director’s similarly-energied GoodFellas, the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter.

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