Scorsese Classic

As far as Martin Scorsese’s career goes, anyone coming fresh – well, fresh-ish – to the director’s work over the last few years would probably be wondering what the fuss is all about.

Sure, The Aviator was pretty good – if a little tedious – but Bringing Out The Dead and, in particular, Gangs of New York, were inconsequential. Even Casino, which put Marty back on his beloved gangster ground, disappointed.

Basically, to understand the fuss, you had to go back to Goodfellas. Alternatively, if you want to look forward, you can now see The Departed. Because, frankly, it’s *&^%ing awesome.

It’s based on Infernal Affairs, the dark and twisty Asian movie, but doesn’t suffer from the usual disappointments that infect remakes. This probably owes a lot to Scorsese being adamant that he wouldn’t watch the original. Instead, this is own film from a translated script. Accordingly, it’s substantially different from first version, but maintains the same energy and darkness. And, of course, the same plot.

It’s a big, long – 150 minutes – and deeply involved movie, about criminal gangs, undercover police investigations and, mostly, corruption at all sorts of levels.

Boston’s underworld is effectively run by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). With the police struggling to pin anything on him, they decide on an elaborate undercover ploy that sees a young cadet called Billy Costigan (Leonardo di Caprio) lowered into Costello’s world. At the same time, Costello has his own man inside the Boston police, a rising star called Sullivan (Matt Damon).

There you go. Instant shade and light, and a fascinating parallel story arc. Or, if you’re not interested in such analysis, the sort of edge of the seat psychological thriller that will have you scratching the material off your seat.

Performances are gob-smacking, particularly di Caprio – back to pre-Titanic quality – Damon and, surprisingly, Mark Wahlberg as a senior cop, who could take a patent on the second bit of the ‘good cop, bad cop’ thing.