The Departed: Critic Reviews

The argot of New York's Little Italy is Martin Scorsese's first language, but the filmmaker speaks fluent, pungent Bostonese in the terrific cops-and-mobsters tale The Departed.

Martin Scorsese's cubistic entertainment about men divided by power, loyalty and their own selves finds the director back on the mean streets where he belongs.

Martin Scorsese has got his groove back.

Two and a half hours race by as this twisting, turning tale blazes its exciting, funny, brutal path.

The Departed, which screenwriter William Monahan cleverly adapted from the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, crackles right along, stopping only long enough for Scorsese's signature bursts of explosive violence.

A relentlessly violent, breathtakingly assured piece of mean-streets filmmaking, the film shows the legendary director dropping the bids for industry respectability that have preoccupied him over the past decade and doing what he does best.

Neither a debacle nor a bore, The Departed works but only up to a point, and never emotionally.

After a pair of flawed Oscar-hunting epics, Martin Scorsese has returned to the gritty, violent mob drama that has always been his strong suit, and the result -- The Departed -- is his best film since 1990's Goodfellas.

A crime drama of thrilling breadth and intensity.

For all its bloodletting, The Departed is an intoxicating film. It's a film that'll have your hands over your face with one eye peeking: The violence sickens, but the movie seduces.

Rude, crafty, funny and richly profane, it's the work of an artist unmistakably in his element.

The Departed exhibits a rough-hewn, deft intelligence. Monahan has written some razor-sharp lines, and Scorsese's latest crew knows how to wield the quips.

The Departed has enough tension to keep you engrossed, and enough color for ten crime pictures. Scorsese obviously adores his expensive, expansive ensemble.

The Departed is murderous fun, but it's too shallow to be the kind of movie that haunts your sleep.

What makes this a Scorsese film, and not merely a retread, is the director's use of actors, locations and energy, and its buried theme. I am fond of saying that a movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.

It is funny, shocking and brutal, and it's filled with brilliant performances, with some of our best actors sinking their teeth into a great screenplay from William Monahan.

After the dolled-up theatrics of his last few features, from Casino (1995) up through The Aviator (2004), it's a kick to find director Martin Scorsese back in prime form, at least in the terrific first half of The Departed.

With its welter of double crosses, The Departed is completely engrossing, a master class in suspense.

Freed from iconic figures and weighty themes, Martin Scorsese, in The Departed, gets to riff and rock. And the audience gets a huge, bloody, profane entertainment in the bargain.

If the story suffers initially from a slight lack of focus, hang in there, because you will soon become immersed in a mesmerizing, expertly plotted cat-and-mouse game.

If this one doesn't win Scorsese an Oscar, then there's something seriously wrong with Oscar.

It took a while, but Martin Scorsese has returned to the Mean Streets.

Mr. Scorsese and his associates have assembled a remarkably charismatic cast to impart coherence and conviction to a narrative that could have easily dwindled into an affectless succession of gratuitous intrigues.

This reworking of a popular Hong Kong picture pulses with energy, tangy dialogue and crackling performances from a fine cast.

Scorsese's sharpest film in a decade and the most entertaining major studio release this year.