The Departed

Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed" is a gritty yet exceptionally riveting film that paints a stunning portrait of what can happen when the Massachusetts State Police Department goes head-to-head with a Boston crime syndicate. It’s being marketed as a remake of 2002’s Hong Kong cop film “Infernal Affairs" , but it’s not so much a remake as it is an Americanized revision of an already intriguing story.

Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan have simply taken the basic structure of its predecessor and reworked it into a glorified Hollywood action film full of unexpected twists and brilliant performances.

Everything from the rapid, graphic violence to the Rolling Stones' 'Gimme Shelter' made it wildly entertaining and demonstrated Scorsese’s superb ability to lull his audience into submission.

Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be getting even better with each performance and his on-screen presence has grown tremendously. I think the decision to pair him with Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson was a brilliant move, because they seem to feed off of one another to make each scene that much more believable.

Here, DiCaprio plays William Costigan, a rookie cop who is pulled out of the police academy to infiltrate the Boston mob run by Nicholson’s character, Frank Costello.

At the same time, Costello sends his own “rat" into the police department in hopes of gaining even more control over illegal activity. Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is a career criminal, who was taken in by Costello at a young age and given a first-hand look at what life in the mob is all about. Sullivan quickly rises up the police ranks and is soon put in charge of the entire investigation involving Costello’s illegal dealings.

Both DiCaprio and Damon deliver thrilling, first-rate performances, but I would give a slight edge to DiCaprio, because he completely consumes everything that Costigan stands for and is ultimately the more sympathetic of the two characters.

When both organizations find out they may have a “rat", a complex game of cat-and-mouse ensues as both “rats" are trying to find one another before it’s too late. As if the story wasn’t intricate enough, Scorsese includes a storyline in which Costigan and Sullivan are both involved with the same woman, which serves to complicate things even more when she becomes pregnant.

At the head of everything is Irish mob boss Frank Costello, whose appetite for violence matches his appetite for women. Jack Nicholson is known for his dark, off-the-wall characters and what he achieves with Costello has to be one of his best. I think the fact that Nicholson rewrote the character to make him even more rotten, pretty much sums up how great the performance really is. During the opening monologue, we hear Costello say “I don’t wanna be a product of my environment I want my environment to be a product of me" and he is determined to stand by that statement.

At 69, Jack seems to be having a great time indulging in such over-the-top roles and should receive an Oscar nomination in February.

During the last twenty minutes of the film, things become a little hectic and bodies begin to pile up, which all lead up to a rooftop showdown between Costigan and Sullivan to determine their fate.

In Martin Scorsese’s world, there is no such thing as a happy ending and “The Departed" proves to be no different. For every good thing that happens, there are five bad things that follow, which makes the ending seem like the only appropriate outcome to one of the best films of the year.

Scorsese is known for incorporating biblical themes into his films and in the end, death may be the only true way for his characters to atone for their sins.

- **** out of 4