Scorsese's best? No...but still enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (7 February 2010)

Well, I am just after seeing the title page and was quite shocked to see that the reviewer on show had stated that Martin Scorses's 2006 crime thriller The Departed was the directors finest.
Wrong. Very wrong. I'll admit, this film is very impressive in a lot of aspects. It does tick a lot of the boxes. It has some of Hollywood's finest giving admirable performances, mainly Jack Nicholsen as Frank Costello and Mark Wahlberg as the tough but strong-minded staff Sergeant Dignam.
In addition, it boasts an on-form Di Caprio as the undercover cop Billy Costigan, who infiltrates the mob syndicate run by boss Costello (Nicholsen), and Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan who turns out to be the rat as the story unravels.
Nonetheless, this film fails to live up to the towering standards firmly set by Raging Bull, one of the most poignantly powerful films of all time with an unstoppable performance by De Niro, whom I believe to be much more effective in collaboration with Scorses than Di Caprio. Along with Bull, Goodfellas is arguably the greatest gangster film of all time and Taxi Driver is what made a star out of Scorses and De Niro.
However, this is a dignified effort by Scorsese and his production team and welcome return to form on the back of the monumentally long-winded Gangs of New York (2002) and Aviator (2004) which was decent but slow in parts, lacked authentic characterisation and was similar to Gangs of New York in the sense that it was unnecessarily long. No thanks, I prefer Scorses's earlier work as it is these films mentioned in the previous paragraph that provide a real insight into the particular topics. Raging Bull depicts the highs and lows of Boxing and Goodfellas' portrays the consequences of shamefully living life as a high-rolling, murdering mafia favourite.
Despite this, Scorsese delivers a good film, an enjoyable watch that kept me compelled until the end. I thought that Jack Nicholsen, possibly the finest actor of all time, was brilliant as Jack Costello and enjoyed the turns of Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone as Mr. French.
I would highly recommend The Departed to anyone. It is intense, gripping and full of top-notch performance from a roll-call of Hollywood's finest past and present. However, if you are not familiar with the works of Martin Scorsese, I urge you to watch his true accomplishments. Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990) are probably the most intoxicating and wildly entertaining hat-trick of films your ever likely to see!
8/10