Movie review: The Departed (2006)

• October 22, 2006
• James Skemp
• dvd / movie, review

Since I'm not going to be able to write the article(s) that I wanted to tonight (since one is going to require research, and the other is going to involve thought) I figure I'll write up a quick review on The Departed, which I had the pleasure of seeing today.

The Departed is quite easily the best film of 2006 that I've seen. Take that however you wish. (Gavin Schmitt, via email, October 20 2006)

I don't think Gavin thought I was going to quote him, but, I think we both know that anything we say via email is fair game (with a few exceptions). Anyways, I think Gavin hit it on the nose.

The first thing I have to comment on is the audience that was with me. It's been a while since I've seen a movie in a theatre so close to when it was first released. Usually, I see movies a month or so after they've been out (id est, a week or so before they leave the theatre). I've been waiting for The Departed since I first saw the trailer on tv, so I didn't want to wait that long this time.

In the theatre, there were initially a lot of women. Now, keep in mind that I saw the movie on Sunday, at the 1 pm showing. This means that not only was the movie $4, it's early Sunday morning. After a while, couples started filtering in, followed by a rather large group of obnoxious teen/college students, who thankfully shut the _ up ('cause I was certainly going to shush them in an aggressive tone if they had not when the movie started).

So, overall, an audience that I was not expecting.

Moving on, the cast. There's a whole lot of A-list talent in this movie, and it shows. Overall, I don't think anyone did less than their best in this film. Not only that, but they've picked exactly the right people for every part. Sometimes you think about what an actor has done before, what parts they've played, and it changes how you think about the character that they're playing. Yet, in this movie, the few times I thought about, which was mainly after the fact, it seemed that they were being conditioned to play their part in this movie.

Not only is this a 'watch in the theatre' movie, this is also a 'buy it when it comes out on DVD' flick. Your mileage may vary, but I completely enjoyed the movie - with absolutely no exceptions. The movie is violent, but before you know it it's over - there's little sustained violence during this movie.

R
152 minutes
2006

• the departed