"The Departed" (2006) - Movie Review

Two persons from opposite sides of the law intrude their enemies and operate to foil the plans of each other. With this amazing plot and gargantuan hope to build on the suspense and thrill, everyone enters the theatre with much to expect and enthralled. They do get all of those in typical Scorcese way. “The Departed” is the remake of the Honk Kong Thriller “Infernal Affairs – I” and anyone who saw the original would exactly know what is going to happen in this Hollywood flick, but what they do not know is that Director Martin Scorcese has his own way of improvising the plots to suit the characters.

The plot remains the same and most of the characters remain the same from the original. The addition though is the foul mouthed intriguing Detective Dignam played marvelously by Mark Wahlberg. The movie populated with heavy star cast proves to be one of the best films in 2006 both entertaining and artistic. There needs to be at the least two to three pages to admire the performances of each actor.

Jack Nicholson as the cold, creepy and wicked humorous Frank Costello shows us why he was nominated in the Oscar for supporting role with just 15-20 minutes screen time in “A Few Good Men”. Matt Damon and Leonardo Di Caprio fit the characters like a glove and roll in perfectly with the director’s top notch story telling. Alec Baldwin as the officer in charge gives us the interesting, hyperactive and weirdly passionate cop. Martin Sheen as the mentor and guidance to the undercover cop stars as well as rest others. The most unexpected package would be Mark Wahlberg as Dignam. The audiences flinch and fall in love with this obnoxious, and bitter mouthed officer.

Scorcese hits us back with his traditional and popular gang wars but with a twist. In his past works, “Goodfellas” and “Casino”, it was inside the gang but here Scorcese goes inside the walls of the Police Department and comes out firing guns. It was just time for him to show the audience that he is still out there in this genre and he still is the Don.

Every frame with the meager layer with a mix of brown and yellow brings in the gritty streets of Boston while the gloomy yet hitting blue pattern brings out the justice department of the city. The soundtrack of the album is terrific with opening sequence with Rolling Stone’s “Gimme Shelter” and on and off “I am shipping up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphy’s are decorations to this master piece. And the news for the people who knows this director’s specialty and also to all who do not know about him is that, “There will be Blood”.

“The Departed” will not only be the Friday evening entertainment but also reside in your home DVD collection to show your grand children that you witnessed Scorcese’s art of direction.