A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

The Evaluation System Reviews by Title Reviews by Date

Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

Title: The Departed

Date Viewed: 10/7/06

Details:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Matt Damon

Jack Nicholson

Mark Wahlberg

Martin Sheen

Alec Baldwin

Vera Farmiga

Director: Martin Scorcese

Score: +

The Review: Brutal but well-acted contemporary look at the Irish mob in Boston, and reciprocal attempts to infiltrate both sides of the law. All-star cast under an experienced director delivering a riveting performance laced with bloody violence and bloody-mindedness. Very different from Mystic River, with its own heart of darkness.

The good guys are the Massachusetts State Police -- with Baldwin leading an organized crime unit and Damon as his up-and-coming hotshot, and with (potty-mouth) Wahlberg and Sheen independently directing an undercover operation, enlisting DiCaprio to infiltrate the bad guys. The bad guys are the current generation of the Irish mob, headed by Nicholson, with a crew of murderous ne'er-do-wells and malcontents. But we discover that the infiltration is bidirectional, and that Nicholson has inserted someone with the Staties. As befits anything of this nature, things do not get simpler as the plot evolves, but there's plenty of action, confrontation and odd turns of fate, and more than a few twists that (perhaps) you should have seen coming, but probably didn't. Me, neither.

(29-Oct-06)

Back to the chronological list of reviews