Day 92: The Departed (2006)

Movie #58 – The Departed (2006) - 151 min, cert 18.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan, an undercover cop who has infiltrated the inner circle of Boston crime lord Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). However Costello has his own man inside the police force, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and as each man becomes aware of the existence of the other it becomes a desperate race for each to expose the other before they themselves are compromised.

The movie starts off slowly, following the central characters as the lives play out to place them in these opposing positions. But once the action begins, the tension builds all the way through the movie, and despite the lateness of the hour, I couldn’t bring myself to stop it before I reached the end, and staying alert was not a problem.

This movie has to rank as one of Scorsese’s finest. Right up alongside Goodfellas & Taxi Driver. I thought when I watched it, what an original twist on the ‘undercover cop struggles to avoid exposure’ storyline it was. However, I now discover that it’s a remake of another film, Infernal Affairs, which also appears in the list (currently at #229). I’ve not seen that film, so I can’t comment, but I’ll make the comparison when I get down that far in the sequence.

The cast is amazing. A real Who’s Who of who’s great in Hollywood at the moment. As well as DiCaprio, Damon & Nicholson who have already been mentioned, there are Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone & Alec Baldwin. Nicholson plays the bad guy as only he can, oozing menace from every pore, ably assisted by Ray Winstone. Damon is also good, but DiCaprio’s is the real stand out performance.

Score – Not quite top marks, I don’t think, so only 9/10, but certainly one of the better 9s.

Next up is To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck. I vaguely remember having to read the book, although I don’t think I ever finished it. I believe it’s some kind of courtroom drama about a white lawyer defending a black girl against some racist charge or other.