Dynamic, Brutal Thriller

Rating: 8/10 (17 October 2006)

Martin Scorsese swaps the mean streets of New York for the green streets of Boston in this electro-charged double-double agent crime thriller. At his disposal are his most starry cast ever, among them Leonardo DiCaprio as the hapless cop Billy Costigan forced into the violent underbelly of Boston's crime family. The yin to his yang is Matt Damon who's character, Colin Sullivan, develops mob ties as a lad, then honours those loyalties by becoming a trooper in the state police, giving Costello influence on the inside. As the story unfolds, Costigan and Sullivan become aware of the nature of each other, and must dig each other out before the other one does, or before getting found out. Among the supporting players are Martin Sheen as the stern but caring police chief Queenan, and Mark Wahlberg, who steals every scene his in as a foul-mouthed, though as nails cop working along side Queenan and Costigan against Costello.
Whilst the movie is based on the outstanding Hong Kong thriller "Infernal Affairs" The Departed is very much "un film de Martin Scorsese". Many of the basic plot strands in Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak's film are present in The Departed, such as the famous silent 30 second phone call, but very seldom do you get any feeling of déjà vu. One such tweak is the role of the mob boss, a important but austere figure in the Hong Kong film, is transformed into a towering inferno in the form of Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello. Here he is the bulk of much of the film's power and emotion, guiding both our protagonists as they attempt to bring their factions down from the inside.
Nicholson is almost unavoidably "Jack" these days. Even when he is playing the psychotic, misogynistic, blood loving Irish mob boss Frank Costello, Nicholson instils him with his evil screen presence, effortlessly charming the audience as well as repulsing them. At times his scenery munching threatens to imbalance the gritty tone of the movie, but just as the seemingly inevitable arching of those infamous eyebrows begins to tease us, we are kept ashore by our faithful director. Not even "Jack" can steal a Scorsese film.
This is Martin Scorsese's first pure genre outing since his reworking of Cape Fear (1991). Whilst I wasn't a huge fan of that particular film, here he succeeds by not limiting himself by the material. Yes this is a genre movie, but that 1970s Scorsese potency perfumes itself throughout, through trademark snazzy editing, a barnstorming rock soundtrack and lots of gratuitous violence. The characters are multi-layered; Matt Damon's mafia ties are at one point complicated by his new found love life. Leonardo DiCaprio is honourable as a cop, but has enough violent tendencies, and drug dependence to throw his good guy image into a mist. The original film was all about entering a layer of hell of getting your real identity confused with your pretense. Whilst this film doesn't quite achieve the depth on top of the style that the original did, and nor does it compete with the heavyweight contenders of Scorsese's yesteryears, such as Mean Streets or Goodfellas, it is never-the-less one of the most electrifying movies I have seen this year. This is, in no small part, due to the wonderful cast, from the poster boys to the equally starry supporting players like Alec Baldwin as a crack police chief, and Ray Winstone who exuberates his nasty, gruff henchman persona with panache despite his Boston-Irish accent seemingly floating in and out of his native cockney at free will. This isn't quite vintage Scorsese, but with Scorsese being the genius he is, its still a dandy.