Watch movie release

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

63 of 71 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant remake of “Infernal Affairs”
By Wayne Klein
It’s a tricky business adapting a foreign movie for an American audience. Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” captures all the best elements of the original film “Infernal Affairs” and works traditional Scorsese themes and material into the film making it very much his own and every bit the equal to the Chinese film. Featuring outstanding performances all around perhaps this film will finally earn Scorsese the Oscar for Best Director that he deserved for “Raging Bull” over twenty years ago.Two state trooper academy graduates one an undercover officer named Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a mole in the department Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) working for crime lord Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson)have opposite goals. Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) charge Costigan with gathering as much dirt as possible on Sullivan so they can finally take him out. They work up a false history for Costigan which includes a brief stint in prison to create credibility. By comparison Sullivan is a boy scout who rises to the top of his department rapidly working for Ellerby (Alec Baldwin)in a rival department. Both are charged with ferriting out the mole in their respective organizations and both are romancing the same woman (Vera Farmiga) without ever meeting.It’s a brilliantly constructed game of cat and mouse with each playing the respective role at one point in time. Filled with brilliant visuals that echo the themes of the script adapted by William Monahan (“Kingdom of Heaven”)from the script by Siu Fai Mak and Felix Chong the film manages to stay true to the elements that worked best in the Chinese film while incorporating elements unique to “The Departed”. DiCaprio and Damon give complex, compelling performances as opposite sides of the same coin. Nicholson plays Costello with psychopathic intensity at times without going too far over the top. The entire cast gives stellar performances but I’d like to note tree actors in particularly who do the most with their limited roles–Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen (who replaced two other actors that had to drop out–Robert DeNiro and Gerard McSorley)and Mark Whalberg all three give intense performances and inhabit their characters fully. Vera Farmiga handles her role of Madolyn equalling the big boys despite the fact that her character isn’t given as much screen time by comparison. Special note should also be made of actor Ray Winstone (“The Proposition”, “King Arthur” and “Cold Mountain”) who gives a nice edgy performance as Mr. French.The film runs 2 hours and 22 minutes. Scorsese uses every minute to allow the actors to build their characters or for brilliant set pieces. The film does sag a bit towards the middle but that’s partially due to its complex set up for the story during the first twenty minutes of the film.

43 of 49 people found the following review helpful.
A remake? An original? Or both…?
By R. Gawlitta
I read some of the other reviews, and I’m frustrated that so many people are finding a problem with Martin Scorcese’s sensibilities in adapting a Hong Kong -set thriller to an American venue, using his legendary experience to create a very American “original”. I was immensely entertained, baffled at all the intended times, intrigued at the appropriate times, and thoroughly blown away with the remarkable ending. Others have blabbed away plot-points, and I’m glad I didn’t read those reviews before I saw the film. There’s no doubt that Scorcese is deserving of Oscar recognition, and trying to make comparisons to his other films doesn’t fly with me. This was a brutal display of some very mean people, but not as gory as “Goodfellas”, not as character driven as “Raging Bull” and not as gritty as “Taxi Driver”. It WAS, however, a terrific plot-driven narrative, and Mr. Scorcese should be applauded for taking this very complicated story, where each character is constantly affecting the others, and making it coherent. Nicholson was, indeed, playing a familiar version of Nicholson, so it was a natural choice in casting but no stretch for the great Jack. The 2-disc DVD is fine, with ample interviews with Mr. Scorcese, and other interesting stuff, especially about Bulgar, the guy after which Nicholson’s character was based. Very glad I made the investment. BTW: The sextet from “Lucia di Lammermoor” is by Donizetti, not Puccini. UPDATE: 2-26-07: I’m glad it won the Oscar.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Ratology
By H. Schneider
At long last a great movie by Scorese again. After a disappointing Aviator and an impressive but somehow soulless Gangs of New York, this one is entirely satisfactory.A highly suspenseful cops and gangsters story with the main driver provided by the mutual spy set-up, i.e. both sides having their undercover agents in the opposite camp.Leo D. and Matt Damon are perfect in their parts as “rats”. Of course they represent different species of the rodent. Leo is the good rat, who hides among the baddies and has to pretend to be one of them. You suffer with him and are near a nervous breakdown, just as he. Damon is the smooth and admirable bad rat who seems to his environment like a good solid bloke, but the viewer knows better. Well, also Wahlberg’s character does not like him, but he likes no one. This is the Hitchcockian technique of letting the audience know more, which increases suspense dramatically. Imagine the same story, but you don’t know who is the bad rat. That would be much less interesting.Nicholson as the evil gangster boss is possibly slightly overdone, but very well so. A good cast in the cop team includes Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg, the latter being mainly remarkable for his foul mouth and his crucial role in the story’s conclusion.The movie is a remake of an excellent Hongkong movie of a few years ago. Scorsese’s version is quite different, but neither better nor worse. Most Hongkong reviewers seem to have decided not to like the new version. Up to them.

See all 1001 customer reviews…

The Departed – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Departed is a 2006 American crime thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese ; a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs and written by William Monahan.

The Departed | Trailer and Cast – Yahoo! Movies
The Departed Premiere. Vera Farmiga at the New York premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Departed. Vera Farmiga at …

The Departed – Rotten Tomatoes – Movies | Movie Trailers | Reviews …
Featuring outstanding work from an excellent cast that includes Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon, The Departed is a thoroughly engrossing gangster …

The Departed
Fan site dedicated to the Martin Scorsese film, The Departed

The Departed | Cody Canada and The Departed
Cody Canada & The Departed. ADVENTS is the Latin word for arrival. And so Cody Canada and The Departed emerge with their first original album. Upon the disbanding …

The Departed | Facebook
The Departed. 5,131 likes · 124 talking about this.

departed – definition of departed by the Free Online Dictionary …
de·part·ed (d-pär t d) adj. 1. Bygone; past: relics from a departed era. 2. Dead. See Synonyms at dead. n. 1. A dead person, especially one who has died recently …

The Departed (2006)
An undercover state cop who infiltrated a Mafia clan and a mole in the police force working for the same mob race to track down and identify each other before being …

The Departed – Wikiquote
The Departed is a 2006 film that follows three men: a crooked cop, the Irish mafia boss he works for, and a straight cop that goes undercover to reveal them both.