Scorsese's Return to Form

Rating: 8/10 (22 April 2010)

This has got to be the best film that Martin Scorsese has made since Casino with De Niro in 1995. He's made some good films since then but nothing of the calibre of his earlier collaborations with De Niro. Here Leonardo Di Caprio, one of the best actors working at the moment, gives an outstanding performance making Costigan's guilt and inner conflict completely convincing. Billy Costigan starts off as a police officer in the Boston Police Department, but he apparently washes out, has a spell in prison before joining the ranks of the Irish mob run by Frank Costello.
Costigan is in fact a mole in Costello's organisation and in a quite brilliant concept, taken from the original version of this film Infernal Affairs, Costello has a mole in the police department, Colin Sullivan. Matt Damon's performance as Sullivan is almost the equal of Di Caprio's creating another great character.
They're not the only two, Jack Nicholson gives perhaps the best performance of the film as the mob boss Frank Costello, he's obviously having a great time here by turns funny, furious and psychotic. De Niro was originally down to play this role but due to his directorial effort The Good Shepherd it wasn't possible and Nicholson stepped in. I for one am glad, De Niro, one of the greatest actors whose ever lived despite the awful films he's been churning out in the last 10 or 15 years, can't possibly have matched the intensity, charisma and sheer brilliance that Nicholson brought to Costello.
To discuss the plot any further would be to spoil it, but suffice to say it is rather brilliant and there are many changes if you have seen Infernal Affairs, it is altogether a more complex affair. The supporting actors Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone all give stellar performances that help make The Departed one of the best films of the decade.