Movie Review -- The Departed (2006)

>

A good action-packed thriller by Martin Scorsese, featuring a stellar cast that boasts Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and Ray Winstone.

All actors had been cast perfectly well for their roles except Jack Nicholson whose individual tics and gestures I believe helped grandstand his overpowering persona to the detriment of all the other actors and the story line. Heck, he did not even appear Italian enough to play a mobster boss named "Frank Costello," did he?

The film rests on a outstanding plot device developed well by screenwriter William Monahan - two rats, 1 inside the Massachusetts State Police and the other inside Costello's mob crew, attempt to flush every single other out in spite of the reality that both are the graduates of the same police academy. That widespread root goes well with the film's central thesis that it does not matter whether or not you are a cop or a thief when you are seeking down the barrel of a gun.

It's a fight to the finish with plenty near-misses and a leggy shrink that beds both bad apples, without having 1 another's information.

The 1st half is spent by establishing the setting and the backdrop of the story mostly by way of Jack Nicholson's gravely voiceovers. It is rather slow, looking, and takes its own sweet time to get going.

But the second half is like a freight train barreling down the rails straight at you. In particular the pretty last sequence in which folks get whacked with out any ceremony, any telegraphing, any lengthy introductions, is sheer artistic courage on the component of Scorsese. Try you may to guess what's subsequent, the story and the director constantly remain a couple of actions ahead and the story never takes a break from uncoiling its ferocious power.

1 thing, having said that, that just about ruined the expertise of watching this super flick for me was the entirely unnecessary, condescending and extremely lame visual pun in the last frame of this otherwise great thriller. What a letdown that was! Why did Scorsese in his proper mind felt the want for such a "reminder" of the film's principal notion I'll in no way know.

But, that unacceptable and screeching final note withstanding, this is however a different Scorsese production that comfortably holds its own against Marty's other masterworks such as the Taxi Driver and the Goodfellas.

Must see.