The Departed Review

 “Best film of the year? Yep.”

Arty Marty Scorsese may be one of the most prolific American film-makers of the past 30 years.  Nahh…I’ll say it.  He is one of the most.  And he doesn’t stick to one type.  Where all of his movies have that Scorsese flair with violence and balls out attitude, they also retain cultural relevance.  There was a lot of hype going into this movie for me(because of good trailers and generally great reviews) but I was going in without any type of expectations.  I heard the comparisons and ignored them and went in clean slate.  I wasn’t dissapointed.

The Departed was a gritty, hard-boiled, crime thriller built on roots of Scorsese’s older movies.  In particular, GoodFellas is tapped here as a guideline to the movies frame.  The movie is laced with cultural themes and very good preformances.  Leo and Damon conquer their roles with leading men status, and Nicholson never let’s you come up for air.  Using the dirty streets of Boston as his setting(mostly filmed in NY), Scorsese set’s up the viewer to have those uneasy, unclean feelings.  At the core, this movie is laced with double betrayals and overall subterfuge in the sake of loyalty.  Very interesting idea’s put together, that Scorsese has shown a knack for untying and retying together.

Although the film is a re-make, I would find it hard pressed to capture all that is in The Departed.  I would love to watch Infernal Affairs and see how it matches up.  The movie feels like old gangster/cop movies that rolled into this time zone.  Scorsese taps his knowledge of film like no other director in Hollywood; it’s not a simple re-telling of any one film, but an incredible homage and original take on old themes.  Let me also say this; Scorses had DeNiro in the 70’s-80’s.  He has Leo in the 90’s and forward.  I saw DiCaprio channeling DeNiro in this movie and that made me smile ever the more. 

The movie is packed with violence, swears, some weird drug/sex scenes and enough one liners to digest  over and over again.  Other notable preformances come from Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen.  This is truely a spectacular use of good actors.  The ensemble cast works here like I haven’t seen in quite some time.  I really can’t complain about anything in this film.  If I really did, it may be the run-time, but that’s only after you come up for air.  It didn’t feel like 2 hours and 30 minutes.  The ending knocks you on your ass and there really isn’t any boring moments here.  If you want to figure out a great way to spend $30 bucks on a night out, this is the movie.  The Departed made me sad that I had to walk out.  And I’m gunna do it, because it deserves it.  This movie get’s a 10 out of 10 Bones, for hitting the mark and doing it all right.

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