Time Magazine Review

Faithful Departed

Marty, Leo, Matt and Jack channel the spirit of a classic Hong Kong crime movie

By RICHARD CORLISS

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0 ... -1,00.html

Damon's performance is suave and scrupulous; Nicholson has almost too much fun; and in a large, stalwart cast I especially liked Ray Winstone as Frank's ruthless hit man, and Farmiga as the woman two lonely men need to confide in or betray. DiCaprio is the standout. Every second of Billy's life is as a spy behind enemy lines; DiCaprio shows the tension such a man feels, the determination and the grace inside him.

Again... we hear DiCaprio is the standout of the film. As of now, I really see the race coming down to DiCaprio or O'Toole but that's only because we really haven't seen much or heard from any other contenders.

Newsweek

Get That Mole Removed
Scorsese returns in grand style with 'The Departed,' the brutal—and hilarious—tale of two snitches.

By David Ansen

Oct. 9, 2006 issue - Martin Scorsese's profanely funny, savagely entertaining "The Departed" is both a return to the underworld turf he's explored in such classics as "Mean Streets" and "GoodFellas" and a departure. What's new is that he's hitched his swirling, white-hot style to the speeding wagon of narrative. For all his brilliance, storytelling has never been his forte or his first concern. Here he has the devilishly convoluted plot of the terrific 2002 Hong Kong cop thriller "Infernal Affairs" to work from, and it's a rich gift.

Screenwriter William Monahan has done a terrific job transposing the story to ethnically fraught Boston. He's added many savory (and unsavory) new elements while staying true to the cat-and-mouse twists and turns of Alan Mak and Felix Chong's original script. (Strangely, there's no acknowledgment that it's a remake until deep into the end credits.) "The Departed" is the tale of two moles. Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is a clean-cut rising star in the Boston Police Department's Special Investigative Unit, which is determined to bring down the kingpin of the Irish-American mob, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). But in fact he's Costello's man, groomed since childhood to infiltrate the police force. Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), who grew up trying to escape from his working-class, criminal background, is now up to his neck in mob activities, working as Costello's trusted associate. What only two people in the world know is that he's actually a cop, planted to tip the police to his boss's every move. Desperately unhappy to be forced into the identity he tried to escape, he's becoming emotionally unraveled. The plot thickens when both sides realize that there's an informer in their midst, and the search for the rat begins. The task of uncovering the mole inside the force is assigned to Sullivan, who is the mole, while the paranoid, volatile Costigan must pretend to find the mob's Judas before he gets discovered and whacked. Complicating matters further, both men fall for the same woman, the psychotherapist Madeleine (Vera Farmiga), who doesn't know either's secret.


The symmetries and complications are pitched on the edge of absurdity, and Scorsese dives headfirst into the fray, simultaneously playing it for maximum suspense and a kind of mad, blood-spattered comedy. You often find yourself laughing and gasping at the same time. Nicholson's gaudy, racist, foulmouthed mobster, first shown only in satanic shadows, is a flamboyantly depraved villain, and Jack plays him with Jacobean gusto. But the entire cast is firing on all cylinders. The first half of the movie belongs to Damon, oozing the confidence, charm and false modesty of a master deceiver. DiCaprio, his eyes unable to mask the torment of a man whose identity is slipping away from him, dominates the second half. This is DiCaprio's coming-of-age role: he's finally put boyhood behind him. Then there's Mark Wahlberg's mad-dog Ser-geant Dignam, a cop whose default mode is raging irrational hostility; Alec Baldwin's hilariously blunt police supervisor Ellerby; Martin Sheen's Queenan, who calls the shots for Costigan and is as much his father figure as Costello is for Sullivan. It's a great ensemble, rounded out by Farmiga's smart, decidedly unconventional shrink.


"The Departed" is Scorsese's most purely enjoyable movie in years. But it's not for the faint of heart. It's rude, bleak, violent and defiantly un-PC. But if you doubt that it's also OK to laugh throughout this rat's nest of paranoia, deceit and bloodshed, keep your eyes on the final frames. Scorsese's parting shot is an uncharacteristic, but well-earned, wink.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15078349/site/newsweek/

Second 4-star review of the year from James Berardinelli:

I'd say The Departed is a lock for Best Picture now. Everyone and their dogs is calling this a classic, pretty much all of the "big" reviewers have chimed in and all are nutso over it. Gangs and Aviator got in as one of the top 3 and this is getting a better reception, the box-office will have no issue, it'll get stars push, it'll have a multitude of noms easily. Locked and loaded.

The borrow a line from Lecter heh, the question now is not whether it'll be nominated, but whether it'll win. I can almost say that at the very least it'll be the biggest runner-up, it'll be in the higher echoleon of the 5 for sure anyways.

having just watched the film; ill say that it is a lock for best picture; its utterly great.

other LOCKS are

best director-scorsesee
best actor-dicaprio
best supporting-nicholson

damon good, but wahlberg is fantastic! he stole the show, imo.

having just watched the film; ill say that it is a lock for best picture; its utterly great.

other LOCKS are

best director-scorsesee
best actor-dicaprio
best supporting-nicholson

damon good, but wahlberg is fantastic! he stole the show, imo.

Holy shit-z at the 4-star review from Berardinelli. My expectations are now officially through the roof.

The two characters to profit most from this re-envisioning are Costello, whose role has been expanded to provide Nicholson with more screen time.

Odd line from the JB review, I guess something got lost in the editing.

Yeah, look like he got into writing about Nicholson and didn't realize when he got to Vera Farmiga's Madeleine, the original sentence was broken.

Woe, The Departed has now become one of my most anticipated.

This has been a lock for a BP nomination for a couple of weeks now. Infact i'd say its the only lock for BP at the moment.

What im concerned about is that all our expectations are too high - so at best it will just meet our expectations and not surpass them, and quite possibly falling below them.

But yeah I cant wait either!!!

I'm not calling it a lock yet. It still needs to pass the BO hurdle. If it gets $70m domestically, it will be fine. If it fails to pass $60m, the perception might be somewhat different for this high-budget film. Staying above 90% at RT and 85 at MC will certainly help. Everything looks likely at the moment; it just needs to maintain the momentum.

I can't see this not doing 70m +. Then again, I'm kinda innumerate (that's illiterate for numbers). I just hear tons of buzz (like actual buzz walking down halls and stuff) and the trailer is pretty literally the only one I see these days, plus what looks to be the best reviews of its kind (lets face it, this aint no Sideways), in, well, a long while anyway (assuming everything holds up). Should go far.

Well yeah the BO has to be above $60 or so million I agree. But I think as long as it can open above $20m - it should still be able to do over $80m. I wouldnt expect anything less than a 4 multiplier for this.

Scorcese will get a nom for sure, but is there any danger that this film could be seen as too commercial, especially 2 or 3 months from now once a lot of more artsy small contenders have come out?

By comparison this movie is virtually a slick blockbuster entertainment, will that hurt it? Sometimes they reward entertaining films, like Titanic, Gladiator, and most recently of course ROTK but for the most part the big Oscar nominees tend to be not all that exciting.

Pretty much. The film has such a mainstream look to it in the ads it'll need to be a mainstream hit (Or enough of one) to make it. The tracking isn't too promising though.

Okay, now Kris has jumped on the Nicholson-for-Lead train. Weird.

http://www.incontention.com/2006/10/wha ... nyway.html

I don't see it happening. When a supporting character gets nominated for lead, besides dominating the screen when he/she shows up, a set of circumstance also needs to coorporate, such as no strong lead performances (Silence of the Lambs) or someone who has no track record with academy yet (Anne Hathaway in Devil Wears Prada and Ethan Hawke in Training Day). With DiCaprio being one of the lead characters and the praise he has gotten, there is really no reason to push Jack in the lead and hurt film's nomination tally along the way.

First not so positive review, from Village Voice, confirming they're one of the most negative major critic out there (counted in both RT's COTC and MC, unlike Slant).

I don't see it happening, either. The only way I could imagine it is pretty warped.

Brad Pitt somehow has enough pull with the campaign and pushes for Jack to go lead so he doesn't have to have him as competition in the Best Supporting Actor category.

Please, this is so the work of Eddie Murphy.

Media shy my ass, the bastard is greedier than every actor out there.

How could he be greedier than Pitt? He had Jennifer Aniston, and wasn't satisfied!

The reason I mentioned Pitt, though, was because he's a producer of The Departed and has a conflict of interest if Jack goes supporting because Pitt's *expected* to get a supporting nomination for Babel.

I'm not a big Brad Pitt fan anymore, so I look for opportunities where I can find them.

Pitt is so going to get nominated. With all of the contenders he is producing, he is in the game. Not sure how much weight he has on The Departed team - you would think Marty, being Marty, would have a say in who goes for what nomination. I think Nicholson and Pitt will coexist just fine.

Especially considering that The Departed will more or less already have TWO leads with DiCaprio and Damon.

I mean Daniel Day Lewis was nominated for Gangs, but here Nicholson is even more clearly supporting. I hope that is where he is nominated too because as a lead he does not stand a chance at a win, but as supporting he's game.