My Review of "The Departed"

The Departed came out back in 2006. When I first saw this movie I thought it was a masterpiece. I loved everything about this movie and it became a little bit of a classic for me. Maybe due to the runtime of the movie, I haven't seen this movie for a long time. Though, I have seen it several times since it came out. I just haven't reviewed this movie through Vocal Media yet.

The movie starts out with a little understanding of what kind of city Boston is. This city almost becomes a little bit of a character itself in this movie. It's a blue collared down where people don't mess with each other. There are a few organized crime syndicates in the city. The crime group that we're paying attention to is an Irish syndicate run by a man named Costello.

Costello is a very evil man and he knows it too. He breeds new victims to help him in his many schemes. The whole first few minutes shows us how he trains kids to do his bidding for when they get older. This movie focuses on one of the many kids he's raised, Colin.

Colin becomes a police officer but really he's a rat to help out Costello and his diabolical plans. At the same time Colin is anointed as a police officer we have another officer named Billy who's on the opposite end of the spectrum. Billy wants to become a cop but because of his troubled background a secret unit wants him to be a rat for the police. The police have been trying to get Costello for years and think that Billy will be the key to this.

This whole movie really gets into motion once the players are set in their marks. What we then get is a paranoia induced cat and mouse chase that will have you at the edge of your seat at all times.

After seeing this movie for so many times I started to see a few cracks in my ideas of this movie. Of course I still appreciate the richness of the character development, amazing story telling and fantastic acting. One of the weird things I found about this movie was the song selections. It's a really small nitpick but sometimes the background music is a little out of place and sometimes it's really on the nose. I know what they're going with this and it's a really small nitpick.

Since this movie came out a long time ago I didn't realize my ignorance about some of the scenarios in this movie. One of the big story pieces is a big heist for micro processors from a factory called micro processor plant. It was kind of comedic and I don't know what they were thinking when adding this to the movie. I guess it was the times when people didn't think much about that but nowadays it's really funny.

Very small nitpicks for what is otherwise a magnificent movie. You have to see how they build the tension in this movie. Even though I've seen this movie many times I was still at the edge of my seat. The acting is so top notch that it feels like your first time watching it all over again. Each scenario ups the tension and the stakes of the movie. You don't know who to trust and you start to become as paranoid as Billy throughout this movie.

I still felt for each of the characters and they are all so multi-dimensional. You can see each side of what is conflicting with them and empathize with each of their situations. In a way this movie can feel heartbreaking and at the same time ultra satisfying.

Overall, I couldn't get enough of this movie yet again. There are a few spots where I started to see the cracks in my ideal of this movie but still I'm unwavering. So many people need to see this movie to know what I mean. If you can't handle tension maybe stay away from this one but it is so well crafted that maybe it'll change your mind. I have to give this movie a 9 out of 10. It is still one of my favorite movies to go back to.