This movie should finally get them both their ever elusive Oscars

Rating: 9/10 (11 November 2006)

Finally, a movie with a great cast, great director and great script that lives up to all the hype! This remake of the Hong Kong gangster flick series Infernal Affairs was beautifully executed by Martin Scorsese, along with his muse-of-the-moment Leonardo Di Caprio. This movie should finally get them both their ever elusive Oscars; Di Caprio and Scorsese have been nominated several times but neither ever won.
Mark Wahlberg, who plays Martin Sheen's partner, adds comic relief with his bulldog character Dignam. Jack Nicholson chillingly plays the villainous Frank Costello perfectly, and yet he manages to get the audience to laugh with him and be enamored by his evil. Nicholson was the only one who didn't take a chance on a character change (having played a similar role in Witches of Eastwick and other flicks). Matt Damon successfully pulls off his first turn as a villain, and Di Caprio develops the physical features to truthfully play a mature role. Di Caprio has consistently been a good actor, but even in The Aviator, his baby-faced features just couldn't dissolve well into the character, no matter how intensely he emotes. In The Departed, he finally looks gritty enough, and, as clinical psychiatrist Madolyn (played by newcomer Vera Farmiga) very correctly puts it, irresistibly vulnerable.
The movie is almost three hours long but you don't feel it; it is tightly edited and composed, which isn't very Scorsese. Definitely one of the best movies of the year.