It’s been a decade since Martin Scorsese began pimping himself out to the stuffy bow ties of the Academy, indulging them with hit-and-miss period pieces like Kundun, Gangs of New York, and The Aviator (the latter which is easily the best). Unfortunately, his work has been steadily losing the gritty and profane ruthlessness that his prior classics were graced with.

Now, Scorsese gives us The Departed, which opens with shots that spit racial defamations while the Rolling Stones’ requisite classic “Gimme Shelter” plays, a song he’s previously licensed for his mobland classics Goodfellas and Casino. It’s a mating call that has wooed his most die-hard fans back to multiplexes to watch his return to the world of meatballs, hatchets, and hollow-point bullets.

However, there are some important deviations in this new venture. First off, The Departed is set against the mean streets of Boston, not his usual haunt, New York City. Presumably inspired by this shift in setting; he wears his new turf on his sleeve, coaxing accents linguists would call non-rhotic (“paaak the caaa in the Haaaved yaaad”) from the cast. And just in case the JFK jargon doesn’t tip you off, the rollicking “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by local Celtic Oi! punk legends The Dropkick Murphys is featured as the film’s theme music.

Unlike previous Scorsese outings, this film is concerned more with the trials and tribulations of the cops, than the woes of his usual Mafioso lineup. Like most good crime dramas, The Departed hinges on an intense and novel premise: what would happen if both the cops and the mob had deeply infiltrated each other’s organizations simultaneously? Borrowing from the popular Hong-Kong action flick Infernal Affairs, Scorsese exhumes its skeletal plot and packs it with the blood and muscle to create an American-style cops-and-robbers saga.

Adding almost an hour of backstory before the action sequence that kickstarts the original Hong-Kong film, Scorsese introduces us to Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). Sullivan is a fast-rising officer who is assigned to the Special Investigations Unit that is ordered to take down the mass murdering and church abrading Irish mob boss, Frank Costello (played with devilish charm by Jack Nicholson). What’s not known to the cops is that Sullivan had been secretly compromised by Costello years back, and to this day remains loyal to his ruthless patron.

Meanwhile, Billy Costigan is a promising police cadet whose family harbours deep historical ties to Frank Costello. Costigan’s attempt to escape his criminal roots by joining the fuzz backfires when he is assigned to go deep undercover and infiltrate Costello’s gang (luck of the Irish, no doubt). Obviously, the result is a tense for both moles as one false smirk can mean cement shoes, a Colombian necktie, or even worse. As a result, both spies carry the heavy burdens of ever-present psychological strain, which really takes its toll when both sides gets wise to the fact that they have a sudden infestation of vermin.

Subsequently the two moles are dispatched to expose each other and engage in what becomes a cat-and-mouse scavenger hunt, where the roles of hunter and hunted shift.

More than simply hard heads butting, The Departed is an intricately smart and maneuvered script that plays out like a street-corner chess game, with every character trying to stay one move or one trick ahead of the other. The scenes pulse with so much deception and tension that a callous suggestion made by Costello actually seems like a perfect solution: why not just “kill everybody”?

While not exactly working ex nihilo screenwriter William Monaghan crafts a slick and smart adaptation of Infernal Affairs. By giving more depth and weight to the thin characters of the earlier film, he invests the audience’s emotions more deeply, while promising a fat payout in the end. The only regrettable additions would be some inefficient scenes with Nicholson’s own boss and an FBI subplot that stretches the credibility of his character.

Monaghan receives ample support from an overflowing cup of Hollywood heavyweights, who digest his meaty dialogue with an appetite for blood. With the exception of a few minor, overly-extravagant moments from Nicholson, who still never fails to magnificently chew scenes to pieces, everyone is in top form. Great performances being given by Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Matt Damon, and of course, Nicholson. However, the highlight among the cast is Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a conflicted hard-knuckled trigger man.

Though a cast this heavy can easily sink a film (see last month’s All The King’s Men), they are disciplined by a Scorsese who hasn’t been this effective and economical since Goodfellas. The director easily makes the film his own with stark, noir-inspired lighting and the raw and dynamic editing style that channels his early films. Meanwhile, he never allows it to sway into the mundane shoot ’em up it could easily have been.

While Scorsese’s return to the gritty contemporary underworld receives a hearty welcome, we must regret that it’s a temporary stay. His next projects are slated to be a Theodore Roosevelt biopic (again starring DiCaprio), and something about traveling priests-riveting stuff, no doubt. However this gives us all the more reason to embrace this current transition, since The Departed is a near-perfect nail-biter with dried blood and swamp mud under its cuticles.

Film review
The Departed
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson
Rating: VVVVv