good 3/4 but bad ending

Rating: 7/10 (26 March 2012)

The Departed starts out great with Jack Nicholson narrating an overview of the crime scene in Boston beginning in the 1960s. Jack is Frank Costello, head of the Irish mob and at war with the older Italian Mafia. Frank befriends Colin Sullivan(Matt Damon) who joins the state police organized crime unit and becomes an informant to Jack, providing him with vital information.
Billy Costigan(Leonardo Di Caprio) is chosen to go undercover and then commits a crime in order to establish credibility with the mobsters and infiltrates the criminal underworld. Departed then becomes a cat and mouse game with each side being aware of the others existence but knowing the actual identity.
The cast is magnificent, with Jack, Leonardo, Matt, plus Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin, it is an allstar lineup. The problem is both the two and a half hour running time and closing fifteen minutes so bad that it's laughable. It's as if Moe, Larry and Curley from the three stooges took over from Scorcese to complete the project. Best Picture; no way, it should have been Pan's Labyrinth, a masterpiece from Guillermo Del Toro. The academy blew it, big time.