And how The Departed burns bright.
The
veteran director returns to trying to please an audience again, rather
than ‘Academy Members’, and the result is a scrumptiously thrilling
epic the likes of which we haven’t seen since De Niro sold his soul to
comedy and DePalma stopped making gangster pictures.
Costello
(Jack Nicholson) is the mob boss. Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is a
member of the crook’s pack who has infiltrated the FBI. And Billy
Costigan (DiCaprio) is a tortured young police officer whose been
persuaded to go undercover as a member of Costello’s homicidal herd.
Naturally, both Sullivan and Costigan discover that their respective
troupes are housing a rat – and both seek an I.D.
There’s a reason the film isn’t being advertised as a remake of Hong Kong hit Infernal Affairs
and that’s because, it isn’t – well, it is, but they’re about as close
as second cousins twice removed. Scorsese has merely taken the
blueprint for the acclaimed film of the same name, and extracted its
detail with his own – resulting in a film that plays as fresh as any
original piece. And if not more so at times.
This thing has got
more guts than John Goodman I tell ya – it’s gritty, it’s compelling,
it’s powerful, it’s surprising, it’s mesmerising, it’s gold! Gold!
Gold! You’re arse is usually asking for an ice-pack after sitting
through a two-and-a-half hour movie, but in this case, it’s as cosy as
the actors are on screen, and by golly you wish it would just prolong.
Scorsese
has crafted some of the most interesting and compelling characters to
grace a vanilla screen in quite some, and coupled with the amazing
performances of the actors, Nicholson’s smug mob boss, DiCaprio’s
flustered hero, Damon’s morally-conflicted crook, Martin Sheen’s
benevolent captain, Alec Baldwin’s decadent lunatic fed and Mark
Wahlberg’s indifferent gung-ho agent will be remembered for awards
shows to come – as the movie hopefully will be too.
The Departed
isn’t just a return to form for Scorsese – let’s admit it, his recent
efforts have been good, but not this good – it’s one of the finest
films of his career, and one of the best movies of the year… if not the
decade.
DVD
Extras There’s a two-disc special edition on offer – with oodles and oodles of
extras – but unfortunately we were only sent the 1-disc version… and
that includes zip. Conclusion:
Movie 100% Extras: 60% 
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