A tour de force! Scorsese's best film of this sort since GoodFellas

Rating: 10/10 (25 October 2006)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Two hot young new recruits join the FBI in the shape of Billy Costigan (Leonardo Di Caprio) and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon.) After a tough, unrelenting grilling, they both get the posts- and end up doing different jobs on the same assignment. A major operation has been set up to bring down revered local crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) who's just masterminded a heist on a military base where loads of tiny micro chip processors have been stolen to be sold to the Chinese to launch a deadly missile into the air. Costigan is sent undercover to infiltrate Costello's gang whilst Sullivan helps lead the operation to bring him down. But along the way it becomes a deadly and uncertain game where no one is who they seem, no one's motives are as clear as they appear and, increasingly, no one can be trusted.
With his latest movie, Scorsese has returned to his staple favourite, the gangster movie, and defiantly issued a message that if you thought Good Fellas was brutal and hard-hitting, you ain't seen nothing till you've seen The Departed. And that would be a pretty accurate assessment. But aside from matching GoodFellas in the brutality stakes, TD also matches it in terms of all round, well, general quality. This is one of the most thoroughly satisfying and totally excellent films I've seen this year, an absorbing and mesmerizing tale that never lets up from beginning to end.
As the main bad guy, Nicholson is at his absolute best (and that ain't no bad thing) doing his coolly edgy and unnerving act to brilliant effect and to be fair the supporting cast don't fu*k up either. Damon, Di Caprio, Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and even cockney heavy Ray Winstone, in his breakthrough to Hollywood role as Costello's thoroughly brutal right-hand man, are all thoroughly immersed in their roles and make each respective part shine to their best effect.
It's actually nastier with the vulgarity of the language used by Nicholson's mobster (especially some of the explicit jibes he comes out with regarding women) but yes this is also one mega violent film that those with faint hearts might want to avoid. Yes, it's all rather frequent and excessive but it's a blessing and a curse because it also succeeds in giving the film a much needed loud, raw, intense feel that fits the mood of the picture brilliantly. And it should also be commended for managing to skillfully combine this seedier side of the film with a genuinely intelligent plot with many skillful twists and turns that you never see coming. Indeed, as the end draws near, it's veered away from it's mobster movie staple a bit and become more of an L.A. Confidential type film of police corruption and double crossing.
It's become a little depressing by the end too, with all but two of the most obnoxious main characters meeting nasty, blood-splattered deaths at the hands of a gun. But, hey, this is a gangster film and at least the worst villains got their just desserts fittingly. And what a gangster film it is too, one of the finest and most memorable we've seen in a while, everything coming together perfectly to make a fantastic cinematic experience. *****