The Departed

Martin Scorsese doesn't make movies easy to watch. You squirm in your seat, but just like a car wreck on the road, you can't turn your eyes away. In fact, you slow your car just to get a better look.
And Scorsese's new movie, The Departed, is that way. In many ways, this is vintage Scorsese, a movie that delves into the grittiness of life and finds poetry.
The Departed is actually a remake, or better yet a reimagining, of a Hong Kong movie called Infernal Affairs.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who has appeared in Scorsese's past two movies, is Billy Costigan, a kid from South Boston whose family upbringing wasn't the best. Nevertheless, he wants to become a cop and ends up going undercover to infiltrate mob boss's Frank Costello's inner circle.
Matt Damon is Colin Sullivan, another ambitious cop who is also a rat for Costello, played with eye-brow raising bluster by Jack Nicholson.
Costigan and Sullivan have never met but their lives are destined to collide, as Costigan borrows deeper into the Costello and Sullivan is entrusted to find the undercover cop Costello suspects is working against him.
This is a movie about corruption that runs deep and wide and rips apart everyone in its path, even those who try to do the right thing.
The performances are raw and the language vibrant, tought talk masking vulnerability.
And Jack Nicholson, as he always does, is hilarious and sinister all in the same time, snarling out his lines with gusto.
No, there is no happy ending in this movie, but with most Scorsese movies, there rarely is.
But the journey is one well worth taking because with Scorsese, the beauty lurks in the ugly.