Cinema - The Departed

Martin Scorsese has had an amazingly eclectic career as a film director - just think of The Age of Innocence, The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun - but he has always been at his best when dealing with crime in a contemporary American setting. In The Departed he has gone right back to this territory. The movie has been widely hailed as being his most accomplished since Goodfellas, which came out 13 years ago. Perhaps it will even win him his first Oscar.

The plot, based on the 2003 Hong Kong thriller Internal Affairs, puts you in the Byzantine cat-and-mole world of the Irish mob in Boston and the police who are combating them. Matt Damon plays a squeaky-clean cop who is really a mobster. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a second-in-command mobster who is really a cop. There’s a rat in both camps, then, but they are both so good at their game that they are virtually beyond suspicion; Damon’s girlfriend is even a police psychologist. Casting his shadow over everything is mob boss Jack Nicholson, revelling in the baddest role he’s ever landed. The plot thickens and twists with every bloody step. Have no doubt about it, this is one of the most violent films the Italian-American director has yet made. It’s ugly then, sure. But its can’t-look-away ugly, it’s what-the-hell-is-going-to-happen-next ugly, it’s beautiful ugly, if you like. You might not approve. But can you resist it? DL