The Departed

We finally went to see The Departed the other day. I had some trepidation about this movie for two reasons:

1. We had to sit in the third row of theater. Sure, it was a Saturday night showing, but the theater was surprisingly packed considering the movie had been out for almost a month already (I guess Borat must have been sold out). If there was going to be a lot of shaky handheld camera work, then it would probably make me nauseous and I wouldn't make it through the movie.

2. The movie was a remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. Usually, these kinds of movies tend to stick in my craw because I don't believe they are completely necessary. Why do you need to remake a perfectly good movie? Does westernizing a story with bigger movie stars really improve on the original? Why can't the movie studios just come up with their own new stories?

I could just go on and on about this; but I won't. The Departed was a really, really good movie. We don't watch a ton of them, but this was probably the best movie we've seen this year besides V for Vendetta. The story moved along at a nice pace and all the actors did a good job.


I used to have little respect for Leonardo DiCaprio. To me, he was always the scrawny little kid with the squeaky voice from "Growing Pains". In The Departed, it seems he's filled out a little and matured into a real actor. He was really convincing as the undercover cop infiltrating Jack Nicholson's Irish mob. His voice still squeaks sometimes, but he was perfect for this role.

Besides a gripping story with a lot of tension, you've got guys from Boston cussing at each other. You've got Jed Bartlett/Martin Sheen speaking with a Boston accent. You've got Jack Nicholson doing his crazy Jack Nicholson thing. You've got Alec Baldwin doing his nutty boss character from "30 Rock". What more can you ask for? This movie deserves some kind of award. It's definitely worth seeing more than once.