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Empire's The Departed Movie Review

Link:http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=10616

Quote:"In balancing his leading men against each other, Scorsese isn’t aiming for his usual criminal anthropology, painting a roots-up picture of Boston’s criminal world akin to GoodFellas’ New York. His focus is on trust and betrayal — how a man can keep his own identity when forced to live a life that is not his own. And DiCaprio and Damon counterbalance each other perfectly, managing (as Tony Leung and Andy Lau did in the original) to offer a compelling case study of two sides of the same coin, enemies defined by the same dilemma."

Quote:"Comfortable with Scorsese after Gangs Of New York and The Aviator, DiCaprio gets the toughest role and delivers: his Billy Costigan is vitalised by a sense of panic and desperation that makes him more likeable than Damon, who is burdened with the more hypocritical part — Sullivan can’t hide from himself the fact that he’s a bad apple who lives on opportunities, not merits."

Quote:"Yet, for all the youthful talent (and we also get Mark Wahlberg to bolster the film’s young-leaning credentials), The Departed belongs to Nicholson and Frank Costello, a man of unpredictable nature who doesn’t simply like violence, he is so steeped in it that it’s as natural as breathing. It’s hard to say which of his words came from Monahan’s script and which were added by the actor, who, in familiar fashion, gives the character as much leery charm as genuine danger, using fear (be it physical, verbal or sexual) as a tool to get precisely what he wants."

Quote:"When it comes to the dynamics of filmmaking, Scorsese still has few peers — an elevator shoot-out in the third act could easily be this year’s tensest scene. The Departed is a sort of time machine: it recalls the richness and moral ambiguity of Hollywood’s ’70s, presenting stories about real people absent of turn-of-the-millennium concerns. They curse, have sex, lie, fight — and sometimes die horribly."

Quote:"Yet, despite its many layers, the director clearly has no ambition to break new ground. The surprising moments of humour that leaven the story suggest that he’s having fun with a film that puts him back on the mean streets, but with no intention of detailing the cogs of the criminal world. It’s not GoodFellas or Casino, but, frankly, it doesn’t have to be. He’s got Jack Nicholson."