Nice film, with some inconsistencies

Rating: Null/10 (30 August 2007)

"The departed", a Martin Scorsese movie that has been awarded with 4 Oscars, among others, is a highly entertaining movie with excellent acting, especially by Leonardo Di Caprio, in my opinion.
Now, if it hadn't been Scorsese, would this movie have gotten all the praise and awards that it has? I doubt it.
Let's go to the plot outline first. It focuses on two characters, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and Billy Costigan (Leonardo Di Caprio). Both are new police officers. Sullivan has been patronized, since his childhood, by big mobster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), and now that he's a cop, he still works for him undercover. Costigan is recruited by Capt. Oliver Queenan (Martin Sheen) to become his undercover man in Costello's gang. What ensues is the narration of how each of them gets around under their circumstances, and how both Costello and Queenan begin to suspect there's a spy on their side, but they don't know who it is.
I found the central part of the movie the most enjoyable and coherent. The introduction was exhaustive, maybe too exhaustive. The ending was very good too. But, like I said, it's the story details and episodes that make the best part of the movie. I especially appreciated how Costigan's side of the story is told, and I found his character much better developed than that of Sullivan.
I found nothing very wrong about "The departed", but I was bothered by some inconsistencies along the way, especially one, which kind of downgraded the movie a little for me. Again, probably, if this hadn't been such a generally applauded film, it wouldn't have mattered... or maybe it would.
Overall, a good thriller, but I didn't find any particularly deep content to it, nor anything that hasn't been said a million times before in this kind of movie. Enjoyable, but vastly overrated.