The Departed

"When I was growing up, they would say you could become cops or criminals. But what I'm saying is this. When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"

Title: The Departed
Year of Release: 2006
Director: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Crime/Drama
Rating: 8.5/10

The Departed centers around a complicated situation, two police officers recruit Billy Costigan to be an undercover police officer for Frank Costello's crew, those two police officers are the only two who know Billy is even a cop, they do reasonably extreme measures to make sure he is not made out, which leads him to being very undercover. To make matters more complicated, Costello has a mole, who desperately searches to find out who the rat is, all the while helping Costello avoid the police.

For those of you who don't know, this is a remake of a Hong Kong film, called Infernal Affairs. Not often does typical Hollywood remakes do good on the originals they remake, quite often they get everything wrong, and fail in almost every aspect, or they try to make an exact replica, just in English for the mass illiterate people who refuse to read their own language, because it takes just that little bit of brain power too much. That being said, this does not fail at all, in fact it stays very faithful to the original, and makes slight improvements here and there. This is probably one of the only (or at least of the very few) remakes that actually surpasses the original. Maybe it's because I saw Infernal Affairs after The Departed, but I just found Departed more exciting, and generally more interesting. When watching Departed I can't wait to see what was going to come next (in every viewing, not just the first or second), whereas Infernal, it just felt sluggish or something to me, though, it is not bad, far from it. I'm just saying, this, unlike most remakes, surpasses the original. But who is really surprised, Scorsese and a great cast cannot fail!

Leonardo DiCaprio, he's one of the best young actors of today, I know he tried desperately to break out of the "Teen Sensation" (or whatever you call it) where all the girls loved him, not because of his acting ability but because of his looks, and time and time again he has said he wanted to lose that image, here you don't see Jack (from Titanic), DiCaprio does a fantastic job with his character. Costigan is easily the best character in this film, he is also, quite dynamic, as made clear early on in the film. He has no problem being a criminal, basically his entire family were criminals (who at sometime knew Costello too), he says that when he is standing next to a mass murderer he doesn't even shake, not a bit. What is obvious though, is he is petrified of being found out for being a cop, it takes a affects him quite deeply which causes him to see a psychiatrist, who gives him Valium. DiCaprio does a great job showing how emotionally difficult it is to be undercover, and makes you dread the thought of being in his shoes.

Jack Nicholson who plays Frank Costello honestly did a decent job, but, at times, he could of done better I think. To me, his character was too much a character, when I felt he should of been a person. Don't get me wrong, Nicholson did an absolutely great job, just at times he wasn't shining too bright, in comparison to some of the other actors in the film. Matt Damon plays Colin (the rat), and he also does a pretty good job, though, the accent became annoying at times, I don't know if that is how people from Boston talk, if that was a bad attempt on his behalf, regardless, it was just annoying, nothing that really effected anything though. Mark Wahlberg plays Dignam (one of the two cops who knows Costigan is a cop) and he does a great job, his character seems to be a bit of prick at times, but it adds something to him, it shows he has experience, not just as a cop, but with working with undercover cops, Costigan is obviously not his first, and it seems death falls on him lightly, almost as if it doesn't bother him much at all.

This is such a good film, one I remember being very excited to see, and I have never been let down by it, with each viewing, this film has got better and better. With a relatively complicated story, and heaps of clever moments throughout. It's constantly exciting and I assure you, it will never bore you, especially with the ending that literally had my jaw on the floor, an ending that doesn't seem to have been done very much. With great performances, great music, great writing and a very interesting story this makes for one of Scorsese's finest films, one I highly recommend for fans of the genre.