Review of The Departed (2006) by Chris R — 07 Jan 2016

THIS IS A REBOOT OF A REVIEW I WROTE BACK IN 2007.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, this film won four of the five Academy Awards that it was nominated for, including best picture and best director and hauled in almost $300 million in worldwide box office, making it Scorsese's biggest financial hit ever.

This is a slam-bang crime thriller with an all star cast including DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, Alex Baldwin and Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg, just to name a few.

The plot is complex and intense, with DiCaprio playing a police informant named Billy Costigan, who's planted into Jack Nicholson's brutal Castello crime family; while Matt Damon plays Colin Sullivan, a cop on the take and also working for Castello's organization. These young cops' lives intertwine in ways that they never realize and the film twists and turns like a blood soaked ballet, with the Damon and DiCaprio characters both knowing the other exists but not knowing who they actually are. Does that make sense?

This is one of Scorsese's best, definitely worthy of his Oscar win and right up there with Goodfella's, Casino and Taxi Driver. His crisp, clip almost staccato style compliments the Oscar winning script (which was adapted from the Hong Kong produced "Infernal Affairs"), and screenwriter William Monahan crafts unforgettable characters, especially Nicholson's "Frank Costello". Jack plays the madness of the character to a "T", in only the way that Nicholson can, taking the character right to the edge but never taking him over the top.

I also think that this is one of DiCaprio's best ever performances. He plays "Billy Costigan" with just the right edge of constant fear, never really knowing when he's going to be found out. At times, his own paranoia pushes him to the brink as he immerses himself in the crime world that surrounds him. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance here; up against himself for "Blood Diamond", and he received an Oscar nom for his performance in "Blood Diamond", but not for this first rate performance. I completely believed him here and I'll have more to say on the comparison of the two performances later.

Matt Damon is good as the crooked cop and I loved his Boston brogue and impish grin, but his boyish good looks make him appear too young to be a hardened cop-on-the-take. He's too likable to be despicable.

Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg are very effective as the team of cops who are "Billy Costigan's" only contact inside the police force and have the power to hang him out to dry at any time. Wahlberg was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this turn, but I'm not convinced it was deserved. I much preferred the performances of Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen or Alec Baldwin, who adds a bit of tongue in cheek humor as an internal affairs cop trying to sniff out the mole.

I don't want to give away much more of the plot, as part of the joy of watching this finely crafted film is the way it takes you off on a violent rollercoaster ride, full of thrilling twist and turns and ups and downs as it roars into it's shocking and blood soaked finale.

When I finished watching this film, I said, out loud, to myself, "That was fun!" And it truly was, in a fiendish way.