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Note that this movie is rated R (and for good reason) and should not be watched lightly. I refer to a couple of graphic scenes during this review.

Whooooaaa. Wow. Oh my god. The Departed is… an amazing movie. The acting is incredible, and so is the directing. It’s just… great. Great filmmaking.

The Departed is the winner of 4 Oscars: Best director, editing, best adapted screen play, and of course best picture. And yes, it deserved it. The Departed is directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Jack Nicholson as the head of the Irish Mafia in contemporary Boston. Matt Damon plays his mole in the Boston police department, and Leonardo DiCaprio plays the police department’s mole in Nicholson’s mafia.

The story generally follows DiCaprio and Damon, both who are terrific actors in this movie. Damon is great, but DiCaprio really steals the show. (DON’T think Titanic) He does an amazing job playing a good guy playing a bad guy. Both DiCaprio and Damon’s character’s stories unravel and relate to each other over the course of the film, and when they finally meet it’s great. Jack Nicholson is, well, Jack Nicholson. He delivers a great performance even at 70 years of age.

Every actor and actress (there’s 1) in the movie, even the minor characters, deliver great performances that always just make me smile. Okay, I don’t smile because they’re usually screaming the f-word every other word (and I mean every other word) but they say the f-word very… realistically.It’s true, the movie is no picnic. This is definitely not a movie for kids. The scenes are very intense and the f-word is said over 200 times. Not to mention the (although brief) sudden and graphic deaths of many main characters. These deaths literally left me with my mouth hanging open, the impact of them was very powerful.

But beyond the acting and the shock factor, what really makes this movie work is the directing. I haven’t seen any other Martin Scorsese movie in full, but I definitely plan to see his other movies. (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Chinatown) His directing makes the movie able to easily transition from slick and cool to messed up and serious. This is of course helped by the editing and the great soundtrack (both The Departed theme and different music used at various times throughout the movie added an extra layer to it)

The combination of the editing and the directing really helps bring out the acting in it. The editing seems to be from the help of Scorcese, but just the way that the camera will move in a specific scene that’s different from how someone would normally shoot it, like panning out instead of panning in. It adds and extra level of suspense to the movie, and makes it so much more fun to watch.

Overall, the movie starts off a little bit slow. It introduces the characters to the tune of the Rolling Stones and sort of tracks their life till today, introducing their backgrounds, etc. Then it takes another 45 minutes to really get into the action. But once it does, and everything is set it up it plays out beautifully. (If you call a guy flying off a building and hitting the ground with a loud smlack and splattering blood all over our hero beautiful.)

Still, I can’t deny that this movie is probably the best movie that I’ve seen so far from 2006 (with Pan’s Labyrinth following close behind.) The movie ends with a certain dead body; and then the camera slowly pans up to the window sill, and a rat scurries across it right before the credits roll up. The rat is of course a metaphor to the fact that the two main characters are rats (moles/double agents) in their respective organizations. Now that’s just awesome.

I’m going to have to give this 4.5/5. I’m taking .5 off only because it goes for a bit too long at 2 and a half hours and because it takes a little bit too long to get into the story. But the ensemble of quality acting mixed with a great story and awesome directing makes this movie an instant classic.

[rating:4.5]

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