Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest directors to come around in a long while. His catalog have been way beyond impressive: Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino; I could go on and on listing his many films and even go on a rant on how he has yet to win an academy award (not that they really mean anything anymore). After taking a little break from his Mean Streets roots to make other projects (the period piece Gangs of New York, and the Biopic The Aviator) Scorsese is back with a vengence in the remake of the 2002 Hong Kong crime film “Infernal Affiars”. But is The Departed really a return to form or just Scorsese trying to hold on to old material?
Film
Set in South Boston, where the state police force is waging war on organized crime. Young undercover cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Costello (Jack Nicholson). While Billy is quickly gaining Costellos confidence, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the police department as an informer for the syndicate, is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the gangsters and the police that there is a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself. The Departed is a terriffic cat-and-mouse chase, that is not only exciting but darkly funny at times and much of that is due to the script by William Monahan and Jack Nicholson’s improvisation of his lines. Like I said earlier, The Departed is a remake of Andrew Lau’s Infernal Affiars, but dont worry if you’ve seen Infernal Affiars you will appreciate The Departed even more, for the most part its the same film with many of the same scene but there are plenty of changes here and there to please those who think they know all that will happen.
Cast
One thing Martin Scorsese can do better than any director is put together an incredible ensemble, and the Departed is no differet. Everyone just totally elevates their game to a higher level. Jack Nicholson is fantastic as always as Mob boss Frank Costello the ruthless and sexually depraived bad guy. Matt Damon gives a subdued performance as the other antagonist, you see glimmers of good in him at times but then there are scenes in which he is down right bad to the bone. Leonardo DiCaprio gives quite possibly the performance of his career as undercover cop William Costigan, he has the most challenging role in the entire film as a man teetering on the edge of insanity torn between his real life and the life he’s been living being undercover for a couple years. That covers the main characters, but thats far from the end of the cast, the supporting roles are just as important as the Main ones (some even more so). Mark Wahlberg plays Dignam one of William Costigan’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) superiors and one of his only links to his real life, Dignam is a hard ass dective who dosent take shit from anyone and is extremely loyal to Oliver Queenan played by Martin Sheen who gives a sympathetic portrayal as the man who gets Costigan into undercover work. Rounding out the cast is Alec Baldwin as Ellerby, and Anthony Anderson as Brown; both who do great jobs given their limited screen time.
Overall Review
An early contender for the best of 06′ The Departed is everything you would expect a master filmmaker like Martin Scorsese to do and more. With a incredible screenplay an equally incredible cast, and some of the best music choices this side of Quentin Tarantino; I mean they found away to put “Gimmie Shelter” by The Rolling Stones, A cover of Pink Flloyd’s “Comfortably Numb”, and Nas’ “Theifs Theme” all in a movie about Irish gangsters and police how many people do you know can actually do that. The Departed easily ranks up there with Goodfellas and Raging Bull as one of Scorsese’s best. And if he dosent win the Academy Award for this he never will. I just hope that it dosent stop him from making these films that we all love from him.
Rating: 10 out of 10
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