Classic

Rating: 8/10 (27 November 2006)

The Departed is a cop movie, through and through, with almost as much mafia flavor thrown in. It could be considered part of the gangster genre, I suppose, but with the double agent detectives being the major players (DiCaprio and Damon), I stick by my original classification. So yeah, this movie has a little bit of everything. Not in that it seems mashed together, but in that it feels real. The characters are deep, constantly living even when they weren't on screen, and the plot line is rich. There's plenty of emotion, both raw and tamedfor those people that like to cry or clap at the end of a movie, lots of guns and blood, and laugh out loud humor delivered via Alec Baldwin and Mark Walberg. Acting is excellent, as to be expected. It hooks you from the moment you sit down andas clichéd as this may beit never lets go.
My only qualm would have to be that the editing was as choppy as a baboon's arse is red. Martin Scorsese, the director, didn't finish the editing until a week before the release, but I would have been happy to have had it delayed a month and seen it at its best. At many points you see characters from an angle and then the angle will change and they will be standing somewhere else. I expected more in that department.
It's a must see, though. A classic for decades to come.