The Departed

DVD review from Nick at Nite

The Departed

Stunning. A masterpiece. This is the type of storytelling that justifies going to the movies. Warning. It has some violence. Some would say it is quite graphic. It is not too over the top, especially in comparison to other films from the genre and Mr. Scorsese, e.g., no baseball bat beatings and no dumping of bodies in random cornfields. Nicholson is fantastic as an Irish mob boss, Damon is superb as the Irish mob boss' conflicted crooked cop, and DiCaprio makes me forgive him for Titanic in his portrayal of the undercover cop. The movie is stolen by Alec Baldwin, who as a the head of the state task force on organized crime is playing a part that he was born to play. Mark Wahlberg has a small, but integral part. It is no surprise he was nominated for an Oscar. I am not going to discuss the plot. Don't want to give away any of the movie. I will say that the movie doesn't seem to me to romanticize the real life Irish mob boss that Nicholson's character is based on. I heard someone say during a radio critique of the movie that the movie somehow made us empathize with this crook. It doesn't. Incidentally, in real the Irish mob boss in on the FBI's ten most wanted list. I give it an "A." Check it out.