Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Departed (2006) - Scorsese's Boston-set wildcat of a capital letter Movie

7/28/2015

The Departed (2006) - Scorsese's Boston-set wildcat of a capital letter Movie

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Boston Movie of the Year + Best Gangster Movie of the Year + Best Comeback Actor of the Year: Matt Damon + Best Remake of the Year + Best Ensemble of the Year: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alex Baldwin, Kevin Corrigan, James Badge Dale

Jack Nicholson lurks in the background behind the young leading men on this poster for Martin Scorsese's The Departed

QUICK REVIEW:

In Boston, Massachusetts, it isn't Italian Americans who control the city's criminal underbelly. Frank Costello does; an Irish crime king who has a guy on the inside of the city's police department, but who also has an 'infestation problem' of his own. In Boston you just have to deal with your problems...

Master filmmaker Martin Scorsese (Casino (1995)) does it again with The Departed; creates a unique crime blast of a movie. The Departed is a remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs (2002), a very successful Hong Kong movie which got 2 sequels, written by William Monahan (Kingdom of Heaven (2005)), who won an Oscar for his adapted screenplay.
The movie offers juicy parts for an exciting ensemble cast that all bring their very best to the film. - And for once, at this stage in his career, Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting (1997)) also has a fully fledged part. - His star was back on the rise, after about 5 years of more or less dubious movies, with his performance in Departed.
The film features a cool music side; both lots of great source music and a great score by Howard Shore (Doubt (2008)). The Oscar-winning editing, by Scorsese regular Thelma Schoonmaker (Goodfellas (1990)), and Michael Ballhaus' (Air Force One (1997)) cinematography are unmatched. SPOILER Martin Sheen's (Apocalypse Now (1979)) death scene is very exciting, and the film's ending, in which nearly everyone 'departs', is great.
I only withhold the 6th ♥ from Departed because the characters, and especially Jack Nicholson's (The Shining (1980)) Frank Costello, seem at times exaggerated in an almost circus-like way. It is truly a great movie nevertheless.

Related posts:

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Martin Scorsese: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - One helluva movie!
Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)
Hugo (2011) - Scorsese's critically acclaimed, magical 3D family adventure/financial disaster

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Boardwalk Empire - 1st season (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats
The Aviator (2004) - The grand American biopic
Casino (1995) - Scorsese's sumptuous Vegas gangster tale has the wingspan of a Greek tragedy
The Age of Innocence (1993) or, Stayin' IN the Pants
Cape Fear (1991) - Scorsese adds lots of stuff to remake but loses the balance

Martin Scorsese directing The Departed

Watch the totally kick-ass trailer for the movie here

Cost: 90 mil. $
Box office: 289.8 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Departed was shot on locations in Boston with interior scenes shot in New York. The film was highly anticipated and became one of Scorsese's biggest hits to date, both commercially and critically: Departed broke Scorsese's decades-long Oscar jinx and earned both Best Picture, Director as well as Adapted Screenplay and Editing Oscars. Mark Wahlberg (Ted 2 (2015)) was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Many have commented that Scorsese won for a lesser film than he has previously been nominated for. He has himself said that he won for Departed because it is his first movie "with a plot." It opened #1 in North America with 26.8 mil. $ and grossed 132.3 mil. $ there (46 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of The Departed?
Any thoughts on Scorsese and Co.'s Oscar wins for the film?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

7/28/2015

The Departed (2006) - Scorsese's Boston-set wildcat of a capital letter Movie

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

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