Best of the Decade #9: The Departed (2006)
As Sean alluded to in another post, I seem to have had a big impact on this list. After I suggested that this film belonged on the list to the other members of Film Junk, it was thrown into the mix. We voted and presto-change-o it’s our number 9 on our Best of the Decade list. Yes, The Departed.
Based on the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, The Departed has a killer concept. Matt Damon plays Colin, a police officer in the state of Massachusetts who is actually a mole for Boston crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). As Colin rises through the ranks of the police force, he tips Frank off along the way and keeps his real boss out of the hands of the law. Colin, however, isn’t the only rat. The police have their own mole in Frank’s crew: Billy, played by director Martin Scorsese’s favourite son, Leonardo DiCaprio. Before long, the proverbial shit hits the fan and everyone figures out that there is a mole on each side and Billy and Colin begin dissecting the information to try and figure out who the other mole is.
For me, The Departed is an incredible achievement in filmmaking. A fast-paced thriller, a character-driven drama, a police procedural (I love those) and much more. With an epic cast of DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Anderson and Martin Sheen, Scorsese adds to his career making style of crime dramas. With Academy Awards for Best Picture, Writing, Editing and Adapted Screenplay, this critically acclaimed film has earned its place as one of the best of the decade.
Check out previous entries from our Top 20 Films of the ’00s.
Comments (25)
its good…I probably need to revisit this to find the appreciation. Greg, please give us your view of what the rat meant, way up on the balcony?
Posted by rus in chicago on December 17th, 2009by the way, for you Vera Farmiga fans she is good, and good naked, in Up In the Air.
Posted by rus in chicago on December 17th, 2009this list is looking amazing so far guys. I look forward every weekday to see the next pick.
All great films so far, especially this one.
Posted by Mike on December 17th, 2009Definitely one of the worst pick so far (Spider-Man being the worst). Very rarely do remakes actually, such as this, outmatch it’s original. Though I don’t consider “Infernal Affiars” to be a particularly good movie, it definitely does a better job than what this film did. Acting, and yes, even directing.
Not too mention that Scorsese won an oscar for this. If the oscar meant anything, which it doesn’t, this would be a terrible film to award him for his accomplishments…considering the brilliant films he made beforehand.
I know my opinion is quite cynical, but I hold true to it, as this site has much better standards…which is why I completely disagree with this choice.
Posted by Soop on December 17th, 2009What the hell is everybody’s problem? Why is everyone so down on the filmjunk crew? It’s just their opinion, and I know you’re also entitled to your own, but do you have to be so bitter and caustic about it? Let’s all just calm the fuck down.
Posted by bad_hat_harry on December 17th, 2009Haha it’s okay, we know the silent majority agree with us.
Seriously though, we were expecting more people to object to this choice. I think it’s an awesome movie, but it seems like people started calling it overrated after it won the Oscar.
Posted by Sean on December 17th, 2009Yeah this movie belongs on a summer schedule. It’s just a cool action movie with Jack Nicholson throwing coke on whores and spouting off wonderful oneliners.
Decent enough choice in my opinion, I expected it to be on here since it was a consensus pick for 2006 (?). I liked it a lot more the second time I saw it, probably because I realized what to expect.
Babel was the real standout movie of that year for me though, but I would not expect that on this list.
Posted by Henrik on December 17th, 2009the only thing I’m going to throw out there is that while the original, Infernal Affairs, is quite good, I think people who prefer it are insane.
Posted by Goon on December 17th, 2009Honestly, I think they would have given him the Oscar regardless of the quality of the film but this still deserves it and deserves to be on the list. Did that movie he was making with Larry David ever come out?
Posted by Your Mom on December 17th, 2009I think this is the first movie I completely disagree with. It was ok but nowhere near best of the decade
Posted by Niklas on December 17th, 2009There definitely was a backlash against this movie after it started getting a lot of praise. I liked it a lot and was in my long list. It was by far Jack’s best role in years and years.
Posted by Justice on December 17th, 2009if this movie didn’t win an oscar, all these tools would be saying it should be number 1 on the list.
Posted by Mike on December 17th, 2009this movie is amazing
Posted by Hannes on December 17th, 2009I think this is an awesome film too and it barely misses the cut on my list. It was quite suspenseful and the violence was unflinching.
Many of the best films get made fun of. We had the whole milkshake thing from There Will Be Blood and all the times they said fuck in The Departed. I love it.
Posted by Primal on December 17th, 2009I don’t know if I would pick it as one of the best of the decade but it’s definitely better than the original.
Posted by swarez on December 17th, 2009I was surprised to see Greg do the write up on this one, good job man. I could have sworn it was you that said Jack was “shit” in the departed? I could be wrong though. I am really glad that I saw this one in the theater. I was looking over Scorsese’s film in this past decade and most are music related. So essentially we have Gangs of New York in 2002, The Aviator in 2004, and The Departed in 2006. It was great to see him go back to what he does best, great film, great pick guys.
Posted by xego on December 17th, 2009Amazing choice. One of my favorite movies too. Nice write-up Greg!
Posted by Kasper on December 17th, 2009@xego: You are right about my feelings on Jack in this movie. I was not impressed by his performance at first. I’ve seen the movie a few more times since the original review and I was able to appreciate his performance more….although, I’m not fully sold on his accent.
Posted by Greg on December 18th, 2009Actually I think is a great movie with very good acting with DiCaprio, Walberg and Sheen and Scorsese gave us another bit of his work.
Posted by Selin on December 18th, 2009I saw this movie many times and I think it deserve to be included in this list.
the one time i’ve seen it, it didn’t have any impact on me. to me it was nothing more than a good crime drama. maybe i need to revisit it sometime.
Posted by Napalm on December 18th, 2009Unfortunate choice for top 10. This film does for gangter films what Abbot and Costello movies did for the horror film genre. Scorcese rehashes the cliches that he himself created yet at no time does he do justice to the originals.
Posted by Davisburg Jim on December 19th, 2009Cliches? Back it up.
Posted by Lunchbreak on December 19th, 2009I enjoyed this, but Nicholson didn’t convince me that he was a hard-core crime boss. He was distracting and the movie would have been better without him.
Posted by Jeff on December 19th, 2009I felt a little cheated watching this film in the theater, I figured I’d finally see one of Marty’s films in a theater instead of video and I didn’t know going in that it was a remake of Infernal Affairs, totally ruined the film since I knew everything that was going to happen ahead of time. Reminded me of watching a tv episode of Superforce that was shamelessly a total ripoff of Bladerunner.
Posted by Bionic Commando on December 19th, 2009Infernal Affairs is a beautifully shot, beautifully understated film about deception and character morality… and The Departed is everything you’d expect from a Hollywood adaptation of such a film. It’s loud (come on, Mark Wahlbergs acting in this film is to shout every single line!) , it’s brash, it’s in your face, it’s OTT, oh and the ending is of course much nicer… because it is Hollywood afterall.
I can’t see why I’d be insane for prefering the original, as it is a far superior film on every level.
Posted by Imran on January 13th, 2010Leave a Reply