DailyView: Day 270, Movie 379

The crime films have never been my favorite genre, so I have missed out on several of the big name films in that style. The Martin Scorsese directed film The Departed was a little different because I have seen the ending of the movie, but had never seen the bulk of it. I am not sure how that happened, but it did. It has been on my queue at HBO Max for awhile now, and I decided to finally watch it for the DailyView.

This was a tense, violent thriller with some awesome acting and a bunch of characters that were lowlifes and scumballs. That was on either side of the law.

South Boston police were waging a war against the criminal underworld of the city, led by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). The police recruited a young cop out of the academy with some shady background, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to go undercover in a complex set up, to try and bring Costello down. However, there was a mole working for Costello inside the Boston police, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Both of them attempted to uncover the undercovers as Costello continued his reign of terror and bad behavior.

Extremely bloody. Violent. There are some shocking moments throughout. As I said, I knew of the shocking ending, which would have been unbelievable if I had not have known about it prior.

The cast, besides our three main (Nicholson, DiCaprio and Damon) was stellar. It included Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Anderson, Ray Winstone, Mark Rolston, and Kevin Corrigan.

The film strings you along as you are never quite sure what is going to happen next. It makes you feel as if you could not trust anybody because they all may have been involved.

Jack Nicholson was crazy good as this moral-less criminal who believed that he was untouchable. Nicholson gave off an evil as this character that made you want to see him brought down, although it was a tad underwhelming when his fate was revealed.

The film was beautifully directed, the imagery framed perfectly. Scorsese won an Academy Award for his work on The Departed, and the film was the Academy Award winner for the Best Movie. This is a film that had a lot going for it and it was worth the wait to finally see.