Movie Review

I went to see The Departed last night. Having heard very good things about this movie I went with pretty high expectations, and I was not disappointed. A very well-written story about an Irish-American Boston organized crime outfit (think Whitey Bulger) I barely even noticed that it was over 2 1/2 hours long.

One thing that is always a danger when a movie is set in Boston is that the particular accents and mannerisms of the characters for which New England (especially Boston) natives are famous for will be so overdone that they seem more like caricatures than real people (think Fever Pitch), but this is not the case. Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Mark Wahlberg all did an outstanding job in this regard.

Jack Nicholson was, as expected, brilliant in his role as Frank Costello - the kingpin of the crime organization. Supposedly Robert De Niro was originally slated for this role, and I'm sure he would have done a good job, but Nicholson was amazing.




If I had any minor complaints it would have with the love triangle between Damon's, DiCaprio's, and Vera Farmiga's character. Honestly, it seemed a little bit contrived. It wasn't bad, but it just seemed unneccessary - like something that got thrown in so that Women would go see the movie too.



Caution: If you are offended by vulgar language, you may not want to see this movie, and don't take the kids to it. They use the F-word 226 times which averages out to be more than once a minute. However, unlike some movies where the bad language seems gratuitious and you sit there thinking that they could have done without it, the language really fits in this movie. It would feel a little strange - and not the least bit believable - without it. I didn't really even notice that many, I was startled when I looked it up later. I knew there were a bunch, but they didn't seem gratuitous or out of place

Overall, A very good movie. This was the first time in a long time that I didn't say to myself afterwards "you know, I really could have put my 8 bucks to better use". While not quite enough yet to break my all time top-five, It is right up there.

Rating: 2 WooHoo!s

(On a side note, I COULD have taken my wife to it after all. I initially figured she would be turned off by excessive violence, but there really wasn't any. Don't get me wrong, it was violent, but not excessively so - it was more of a drama)

Fun Trivia: The Apartment that Matt Damon's character lives in used to belong to The Greatest Quarterback of All Time.