Entertaining and well-acted... but definitely over-rated.

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2007)

First of all, best Scorsese film? Please, forget "Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas"... even "Gangs of New York" had more passion, class and originality. Scorsese just used all of his old violence shots and visual tricks once again and somehow the Academy suddenly rubbed their eyes and said "Oh we've overlooked the guy for so long. Come child, here's candy!"
I'm not actually dissing the movie though. It's got a smart plot, although that's influenced by the classic Hong Kong film. It's got thrilling action sequences, moments of sheer suspense and a very entertaining ending with well-crafted plot twists. The original score is just plain awesome. The allover acting is top-notch... Leo DiCaprio does a very convincing job while Matt Damon's performance is somehow a bit flat. Jack Nicholson is damn charismatic as usual. Among the supporting roles by Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg, it's Mark who steals the show with his impulsive and ever-sarcastic persona.
Then why is the film so far from being perfect? The storycrafting and the screenplay of course. The characters are, well, pretty one-dimensional, shown in black or white... especially Colin Sullivan. Even Dicaprio's character just whines about his job, but that's all. The supporting characters, except Dignam in the end, fail to add enough substantiality to the story. The story itself moves unrealistically fast... thereby leaving the audience completely fooled by its occasional flashes of action sequences. The dialogues, oh god, what can I say? Using the word 'fuck' in every line more than once neither makes the screenplay a classic, nor makes it realistic.
To summarise, "The Departed" is violent, smart, well-acted and also a well-directed thriller. But it's definitely not more Oscar-worthy than Scorsese's other classic works for one simple reason - it's not quite original. It offers nothing new.
And that's that.