Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: William Monahan (screenplay), Alan Mak (screenplay Infernal Affairs), Felix Chong (screenplay Infernal Affairs)
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

The Departed is a complex and intense crime thriller about the opposing forces of cops and crooks who turn out to be not so different. The cops are possibly even more macho, use as much profanity, and break almost as many rules as the gangsters.

For a Scorsese movie, it is very plot driven; the screenplay is borrowed from Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs (2002), which is also excellent.

DiCaprio stars as Billy Costigan, a trainee at the Massachusetts State Police Academy who, due to his family’s criminal background, is recruited as the perfect candidate to infiltrate the organization of Boston hood Frank Costello (Nicholson). In return, Costello has groomed a boy called Colin Sullivan (Damon) to become his mole inside the Boston police’s Special Investigations Unit.

This set-up ensures a hyperintense thrillride that will surely end in bloodshed. The cast is truly spectacular with Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga and Alec Baldwin (amongst others) in memorable supporting roles. The real show stealers though are Nicholson as Costello (based on reallife Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger) and Ray Winstone as his henchman Mr. French. If ever there were a couple of depraved, sociopathic and scary mob figures in a movie, it is these two.

Although it won Scorsese his first Oscar, I don’t think The Departed is as great as GoodFellas or Casino. But the movie’s realistic portrayal of the Boston underworld and its superb camerawork, editing and soundtrack, demands its inclusion in this ultimate gangster film overview.