Far from departed for America's modern movie master

Rating: 9/10 (8 February 2007)

For over two decades, Martin Scorsese captured the essence of the modern mafia and street-wise tough guys so distinctly and vividly that the very idea of anyone else trying to so seemed infeasible. With Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino, Scorsese molded ugly, violent and unrepentant criminals into captivating and even likable characters that are impossible to forget. After going off the beaten path with past efforts Gangs of New York and The Aviator, the man most people (myseslf included) to be our greatest living filmmaker has returned to his roots with The Departed. Simply put, it's the best film of 2006, if not the last several years. From the first words, there's no mistake that Marty has crafted another masterpiece like only he can. Obscenely crackling dialogue, in-your-face blood and brutality and a soundtrack that hits all the right notes are only a few of the familiar fingerprints left in the reels by Mr. Scorsese. It's funny, it's startling, and it's spectacular. How good is it? This could very well be the work that finally gets Marty the Oscar gold that he should've gotten a few times by now. We'll have to wait a few more weeks to see if that happens, but it takes much less time to see that The Departed is a masterpiece of film-making from a director who has made a living out of creating them.