The Departed Critic Reviews
Metascore®:
Based upon 15 Critic Reviews- Highest Rated
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- Favorite Critics
When The Departed roars to life, as it does in so many of its scenes, you feel like nobody understands movies -- the delirious highs, the unforgiving moral depths -- as well as this man does. Welcome back, Marty.Read the full review
It is intriguing to wonder what Scorsese saw in the Hong Kong movie that inspired him to make the second remake of his career (after "Cape Fear"). I think he instantly recognized that this story, at a buried level, brought two sides of his art and psyche into equal focus.Read the full review
The very title The Departed suggests a James Joycean take on Irish-Catholic sentiment when, of course, this story is anything but: It's Scorsesean, and he's in full bloom.Read the full review
Frequently excessive but never dull, The Departed is a little too much of a lot of the things that define Martin Scorsese films but it's also almost impossible to resist. Too operatic at times, too in love with violence and macho posturing at others, it's a potboiler dressed up in upscale designer clothes, but oh how that pot does boil.Read the full review
The original film was gritty and entertaining ("Infernal Affairs"); the new version is a masterpiece - the best effort Scorsese has brought to the screen since "Goodfellas."Read the full review
A new American crime classic from the legendary Martin Scorsese, whose talent shines here on its highest beams.Read the full review
There's no attempt at greatness here, just a fabulously successful attempt at a good crime movie. The Oscar-bait self-consciousness of "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" is gone. In its place is a buoyancy, an impish delight in telling a harsh urban story in the most effective terms possible.Read the full review
It's nice to see Scorsese back in the saddle and a treat to find a cops-and-robbers thriller with some energy and wit. But even so, it's a stylish head rush of a movie that flies by, even at two-and-a-half hours, and keeps turning the knife (and your stomach) up to the final scene.Read the full review
A ferociously entertaining film.Read the full review
What helps make The Departed at once a success and a relief isn't that the director of "Kundun," Mr. Scorsese's deeply felt film about the Dalai Lama, is back on the mean streets where he belongs; what's at stake here is the film and the filmmaking, not the director's epic importance.Read the full review