Quality production, graphic violence, strong language

Rating: 8/10 (20 September 2007)

The concept of having one Massachusetts State policeman be a mole for the mafia in the police department and another policeman be a mole for the police department in the mafia is an interesting one. The parallel stories of the two policemen are inter-cut with great skill. Keeping up with the complex interplay between the Irish Mafia, the Special Investigations Unit of the Massachusetts State Police, the FBI, the Italian Mafia, and the regular Massachusetts State Police kept me on my toes.
Scorcese extracts some excellent performances from Damon and DiCaprio. Restraining Nicholson seems to be the challenge with him at this stage in his career and, barring a couple of excesses, he is in good form. And the wonderful Ray Winstone is perfect for his part - he is so good that you don't know he is acting, until you realize he is a native Brit and is effecting a quite believable American accent.
In the lives of people like Mark Foley, Larry Craig, and Ted Haggard we have seen the ultimate effects of long-term pretense at being something you are not. The analysis of pretense behavior for Damon and DiCaprio is more subtle. They both have qualms about their double lives, but they have been trapped by their decisions, and all does not end well. The examination of character traits that lead to tragedy almost makes this movie have Shakespearean dimensions. And, in Shakespearean fashion, it ends with a heap of dead bodies.
If you are put off by strong language and explicit violence, don't go near this. Some of the violence seemed gratuitous to me and by the end I had seen quite enough of people getting shot in the head. But I guess Scorsese wanted us to see the brutal world these people were living in.
I felt that Damon and DiCaprio having the same love interest was an unnecessary plot complication and I did not sense any chemistry in either of the relationships. Some of the filming techniques puzzled me. For example, when Nicholson first comes on screen he remains in shadows until he finally appears in a full color close up. I did not get the significance of that unless it was a takeoff on Orson Welles' entry in "The Third Man."
But, it's hard to find much fault with this film.