Ladies and Gentleman the highlight Reel proudly presents the review for this piece of art:
The Departed
Director:
Martin Scorsese
Main Cast:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson
Plot:
An undercover cop infiltrates an Irish mob which has planted a mole within the Boston Police force, after a series of events both side
discover that they have moles within their organisation.
Review:
Based on the 2002 Hong Kong film Internal Affairs Martin Scorsese presents us with The Departed.
The Departed stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy Costigan, a young police academy attendee who is asked to go undercover within Bostons Irish-American Mob, as he has family ties to organised crime which make him the perfect infiltrator.
Little know to the Boston Police department the Mob has the exact same idea. Mob leader Frank Costello (Nicholson) acquires the services on Colin Sullivan (Damon), a young man hand picked by Frank as a young boy to be trained to become a mole within the Boston police.
Before long both men become engaged in a battle to uncover one another with not only their jobs but ultimately their lives on the line.
The Cast is extremely strong with top performances all round, from DiCaprio's tortured soul of Constigan to Nicholson's relentless Costello it is very hard to find flaw within this casting, it truly is a star studded cast, this is most evident as the films plot travels through its entanglement of double & triple crosses making it all seem not only believable but compelling.
As mentioned The Departed is based on a Hong Kong thriller, Infernal Affairs. Using this original material as a blueprint, Scorsese and Boston-born screenwriter William Monahan have made it their own insisting The Departed is not a remake.
The pitch is the same in both movies and they ask identical questions about identity – where does the performance end? – but the similarities stop there. Andrew Lau’s stylish 2002 original plays like John Woo or Ringo Lam with less blood; this plays like Scorsese with buckets of the stuff. Heads explode. Cars explode. Speakers explode, music blaring as bursts of especially colourful profanity, homophobic jibes and racist slants turn up the volume still higher. And while Michael Ballhaus’ mobile camerawork is less dazzling than it was on GoodFellas, less rich than on The Age Of Innocence, it’s always urgent: a neon-drenched chase sequence and a jud-jud-juddery gun battle squeezing a few last beads of sweat from, respectively, expressionistic framing and staccato freezeframes. Even better, Ballhaus’ use of a flat, almost monochromatic, palette makes sudden sense when the so-red-it-stings blood begins to flow, gush and spray.
The Departed is nothing short of brilliant with its complicated and ambitious plot executed perfectly leaving me with no doubt why it won 4 academy awards including "Best Picture" in 2007.
Scorsese also won "Best Director" at the Golden Globes in 2007 for his work in The Departed which adds to his fantastic directorial career.
Verdict:
While plot threads may occasionally tangle, this is Scorsese on his A-game.
Score:
9.5/10
