Both fortunately and unfortunately, it's what we've come to expect from Scorsese

Rating: 6/10 (27 March 2007)

Martin Scorsese was once one of the world's great filmmakers, but the truth is that he has been rehashing some combination of "Raging Bull" and "Mean Streets" for the last quarter-century. Even his latter-day masterpiece, "Goodfellas" repeats the revisionist gangster themes of "Mean Streets" with the visual language of "Raging Bull" almost exactly copied. In this way it's unfortunate that "The Departed" is more of the same.
However, even in his darkest hours of imagination, Scorsese has always been a competent storyteller whose films are filled with excellent, vibrant performances, spot-on editing and of course his much-revered knack for choosing score material. In this way, it's fortunate that "The Departed" is more of the same.
The story is one that inherently involves all of Scorsese's favorite themes: violence, identity, and loyalty. It tells two essentially identical inverted story lines: (Slight spoiler, but no more than the commercials told you) A young man who has grown up learning from gang leader Frank Costello becomes Costello's mole inside the state police and a young man who has grown up surrounded by criminals becomes an undercover police officer who infiltrates Costello's organization (spoiler over). The intertwined stories are perhaps the most interesting part of the film, since this take on narrative is something new to Scorsese's repertoire, but it unfortunately is not handled perfectly. Some of the editing is coarse for no obvious reason and yet Scorsese does not provide us with any visual cues that either show that we are supposed to be confused or help us orient ourselves.
Meanwhile, the acting is perfect all the way. Mark Wahlberg may be a one-note actor, but his character is his note. Meanwhile, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio are excellent in deep, layered roles, though Damon does not have the opportunity DiCaprio does to chew up the screen now and again. Martin Sheen is used perfectly in the type of role we're getting used to him playing. Most importantly, the borderline-campy theatricality and evil of Jack Nicholson is used to absolutely perfect effect in devilishly comic portrayal of an underworld kingpin.
Oddly, one place where the film goes awry is in its use of music. While certainly the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" is used wonderfully, to great effect and absolutely appropriately (almost as well as the instrumental section of Derek and the Dominoes' "Layla" in Goodfellas), some of the music was annoyingly distracting. This problem also crept up on Scorsese's last film, "The Aviator," at a few points, which is a disturbing and disheartening trend in the director's career. It almost sounds as if he is trying to insert more "hip" music with which he is less familiar (and which he may even like less) and thus is forcing it into place far more than when he uses some of the classic rock anthems and classical standards he has used to such great effect in the past and even in this film. The presence of composer Howard Shore obviously doesn't help, either, as the master of the Very Standard Score delivers the same thing he nearly always does--a bag of clichés.
Overall, the film is worth sitting through once, and probably worth more than that if you're unfamiliar with Scorsese's work. However, it's not much more than that. Watching "Raging Bull" (or "Goodfellas" or "The Last Temptation of Christ," for that matter) again is definitely a better use of one's time. It also certainly wasn't the best picture of the year--"United 93" was.