The Departed
As a general rule I hate it when the Academy gives out Oscars for someone’s body of work as opposed to judging an individual film on its own merits. Since Martin Scorsese has never won, I was afraid that’s how they’d end up giving him his statue. It just wouldn’t be right to give let him win on the back of one of his lesser films. However, with The Departed they will be able to call him up to the podium and feel good about doing it.
Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) are two police detectives. One is undercover trying to bring down Frank Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) criminal organization, while the other is actually one of Costello’s men who has infiltrated the police department. When each becomes aware of the other’s existence it becomes a race for one mole to find the other first.
There is just one flat out great performance after another. There are easily five or six people that could get nominations without anyone really being that surprised. On top of that, both Nicholson and DiCaprio are probably front runners in whatever categories they end up in. Matt Damon probably does his best work since The Talented Mr. Ripley. Rounding out the cast are Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg. Not only do these two play well off of each other but you have to love Baldwin’s sweaty, pudgy self and Wahlberg’s tough guy ball buster. It probably says something for the talent here that Martin Sheen was completely overshadowed by the rest of the cast.
The most amazing thing, though, is how incredibly funny this film is. Don’t get me wrong, this is first and foremost a violent cop film, but they are able to slip in quite a lot of humor, but it’s not silly jokes or visual gags, well, except for Nicholson in a porno theater. What’s great about it is that all of the jokes are totally appropriate and come naturally in the dialog.
Look, Infernal Affairs is a good film, but when I originally saw it I thought that if you gave it a good director and one or two stars you might have something an American audience would get behind. Apparently, someone was listening, because that’s exactly what we got here. There is talent to spare. There are even a couple little directing touches that I swear are there just so that Scorsese can flex and show how good a director he is.
If you shy away from violence or profanity then you might want to steer clear of The Departed, but then again what would you expect this movie to be? On the other hand, if you like great film, then you need to go out and see this one. The Departed is not only going to go down as one for Martin Scorsese’s best films, but also one of Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio’s. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to see it in the theater before you buy it on DVD.
The Grade
- Story: A
- Acting: A+
- Visuals: A
- Originality: B+
- Enjoyability: A+
- Overall: A+
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