The Departed

By: Andrew Moran

4 Stars out of 5 Stars

Starring (Alphabetical Order): Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen & Mark Whalberg

Years ago, a powerful Irish mafia figure placed a small selection of his youngest, brightest men into the Massachusetts Police Academy as cadets. Their purpose is to eventually rise within the prestigious ranks of the city's police department, to serve as the eyes and ears of their boss. While somewhere else, a young cadet was assigned with an equally dangerous task: infiltrate the Irish syndicate headed by the man sending in his own to the Boston Police. Now, one cadet is an up and coming police official with a torn allegiance to his job and to the criminal mastermind that put him there. While the other cadet is the trusted number two of that man, only finding his professional duties are becoming blurred with his current state. But new clues have lead to unfortunate discoveries, when both sides realize the enemy is watching them. It's now all just a matter of time before the men assigned to find out whose the infiltrator, could come to a bloody end when someone's identity may be revealed.

The Departed is a tough gritty big city New York picture we’ve been waiting for for quite some time now. People have been ridiculing Martin Scorsese (The Aviator & Raging Bull) since Casino by stating that he hasn’t done any great pictures since.  Basically the same thing with Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg, but I disagree; however this film is probably one of the best Crime-Dramas for Martin Scorsese.

The acting is simply superb, especially for this type of genre.  This is a bit of a change for Leonardo DiCaprio (Gangs of New York & The Aviator) since he is used to just basic drama as opposed to the Scorsese type of Crime Dramas.  A lot of people don’t have faith in DiCaprio but after seeing his early work in Basketball Diaries you could obviously realized he has great acting potential. Another great performance was by Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity & Good Will Hunting), who played a bit of an antagonist but he was great at it. And the stunning performance of Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest & The Shining) left you in awe once again.

The camera texture work is amazing, probably one of the best.  It really got the toughness to the film out in the open when this film had its moments of intensity.  The Director of Photography, Michael Ballhaus (Gangs of New York & The Legend of Bagger Vance, had a great color of the soft-boxes and the blue filters in the exterior shots of the film.

Overall this is truly one of the better films of the year.  As two weeks ago with All The King’s Men, this will be one of the best of the year.  I recommend this film if you enjoy the Crime-Drama genre or just Martin Scorsese films.