IMPRESSIONS OF MOVIES

Seeing a flick in New York City has gotten way too expensive, especially when you factor in the cost of riding the subway to and from the theater. Still, if you go early enough in the day, and fit in more than one, it actually balances out. Last Saturday, for example, I took in a double feature comprised of “The Departed” and “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints” at the 42^nd St. AMC.

“The Departed” alone would have made the trip. Martin Scorcese’s latest opus is crass, violent, occasionally over-the-top, and exceptionally awesome. It’s a return to the genre that made the director so popular to begin with: the mob flick. But it’s also a remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s 2002 “Infernal Affairs,” that rare Hong Kong flick that actually got a theatrical life on these shores.

Despite a shared basic plotline – moles for the police and mafia infiltrate the other’s organizations, attempt to smoke out the other, and avoid detection themselves – Scorcese manages to craft what feels like a totally original movie. How does one explain this? It can’t just be the transplanting of action from Hong Kong to Boston, or the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon for Tony Leung and Andy Lau, respectively.

If I had to guess, I’d say that culture plays a part in the differences. “Infernal Affairs,” like a lot of Hong Kong cinema, emphasized the action and suspense scenes, while downplaying the drama. “The Departed,” meanwhile, goes the totally opposite route. Like “Mean Streets,” “Goodfellas,” and other definitive Scorcese films, there is bloodletting and kill-shots galore, but these merely punctuate overall character development.

There’s also a discernible difference in acting styles between this film and its Eastern counterpart. Whereas the latter emphasized stoicism – Tony Leung never went hog wild except for dramatic effect – the colorful array of heroes and villains in “The Departed” frequently wear their passion on their sleeves. As a result, there’s a lot of ribald, really inappropriate behavior and dialogue, including a howler that involves cranberry juice and women’s biological functions.

With “The Departed,” Scorcese really returns to the same dingy depths as “Goodfellas,” and one gets the feeling that he’s at his most comfortable there. But equally at home during this excursion into the underbelly is Jack Nicholson as king snake Frank Costello, a hedonist so far gone that his motivations stem from sheer boredom. A crook with all the coke and hookers he’ll ever need, Costello is a walking example of that line from “Heat:” For him, “the action is the juice.”

Speaking of juice, there was also a lot of high-energy acting in “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints,” the debut feature of Astoria native Dito Montiel. We clearly get the impression that his childhood was pretty bad, featuring a father who was too busy trying to be a man to actually be his dad.

There’s no shortage of macho posturing and obnoxious behavior in Montiel’s memoirs. Had I been watching “A Guide…” at home, I might have actually turned off the DVD player and gone to read a book. But I’m glad I stuck with it, because the acting by Robert Downey, Jr., who gets a lot of screen time later on as the director’s grown-up counterpart, is terrific. The movie may not end on the most satisfactory note, but you can’t make peace with the past without first returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak. This film is a fine chronicle of that important, initial step.