Greatness by Scorsese

Rating: 10/10 (14 April 2008)

Did not disappoint - if I may begin with a mother of all understatements. Now THIS is quality film-making, folks. Quite surely one of the best crime thrillers I have ever seen, along with for example Kurosawa's High and Low - and yeah, I actually wrote so. Both are that to me for different reasons: the latter for its realism plus subtle and brilliant portrayal of social divides, the former perhaps mostly for its awesome-beyond-words suspense. However, The Departed also manages to give a satisfactory account of organized crime, both in the larger social context and on the human mind especially. Unlike so many crime movies today, there is plausible realism found here, and that added substance clinches the film into masterpiece category.
In the real world, anyone can get unceremoniously killed in an instant if they surround themselves with these kinds of settings. It also doesn't matter squat whether you die deservedly or not, or whether you get a parade or get thrown in a dumpster afterwards. This is a fact one has to come to grips with as a mobster. Scorsese has been saying this through his films for years, he shows killing usually briefly and in an almost matter-of-fact way. There is zero glorification, and this applies to The Departed maybe more than to any other work of his. In addition, the excellent script (by William Monahan) also found room to display thought-provoking similarities between the very macho and homophobic cultures found not only on the wrong side of the law, but the police force as well. This is just one of the tools in blurring the classic good/bad dichotomy, which (among all other things) is done very well in the film.
Two points of caution if you plan to watch this, though. This movie is a nerve-wreck par excellance, and a duration well over two hours can get to you. Also, if you're into that particular field, try to look past the fact that there just might be a few times when the worn cliché Psychology=Freud surfaces... But yes, this is arguably the best or, at the very least, definitely one of the best pictures Martin Scorsese has ever made.