Double dealing with a vengeance

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2007)

The debates will probably rage on for years: Has Scorsese done his best work here?
Like many in this forum, I've seen all of his movies. From the aspect of thrills-a-minute, edge of your seat action, I think I'd say this is his best movie. However, as gangster movies go, I still prefer Gangs of New York (2002). For suspense, Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear (1991) beats them all, I think. And, for characterization, Raging Bull (1980)  the movie that should have got him an Oscar  is still without equal, for me. Having said all that, however, The Departed is still the overall winner, mainly because the story is so well constructed and delivers the best double twist  or is it triple?  I've seen for many a year. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of a better one...
So, I won't be saying too much about the actual plot (the sequence of events), but the story is basically this: two young graduates of the police both act as undercover agents, one as a mole inside the Boston Irish mafia, the other as a mole for the same Irish mafia inside the Boston police force. The story centers around the two moles trying to unmask the other and it's a race to see who gets in first, so to speak. Aaaah, such irony...
With a stellar cast of just super actors, this film just had to turn out right: too many careers were on the line, I think. And, it did turn out right. There's not a false note by any of them, with one exception: I wasn't convinced that Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) as the police psychiatrist could be so stupid to become the lover of both moles. I can suspend my disbelief about a lot of things to carry on with a narrative, but that just doesn't ring true. However, it serves a purpose, as you will find out; and that suggests to me that such artificiality was injected for that very reason. But, I could be wrong...
Generally, it's fast paced, as I implied, but there are a few slow spots for me, mostly to do with Madolyn with the moles. To keep pace with the action, the editing is quite the best I've seen; the sequence when a body lands, from a great distance, on a city street in front of one of the moles in unbelievably precise, timed to the millisecond, but believably gruesome.
Jack Nicholson is just superb as the gangster boss, affable yet entirely menacing; Ray Winston  always my favorite gangster  is an excellent sidekick and trusted friend for the boss; Alec Baldwin again shows his implacable nature as one of the police heads, Ellerby  just as affable as the gangster boss, and almost as menacing when needs be; Martin Sheen, as Queenan, the head of the undercover section, brings perhaps the only honest face into the story; and Mark Wahlberg, an actor I've ignored for a long time, gives a very good impression of a terrier that just won't let go  he's actually terrific in the role of Dignam.
As to Di Caprio and Damon, the two young cops: both very accomplished actors and both acquit themselves with very believable portrayals  apart from sharing Madolyn.
The only sour note for me was the closing scene, and I mean the very last shot, as the camera pans across the balcony of an empty apartment to show... Well, I'll let you find out. Tsk, tsk  how banal... and how unnecessary.