Before last year's debauched, uproarious masterpiece The Wolf Of Wall Street, a case could have been made that The Departed was director Martin Scorsese's most purely entertaining film. It is an absolute joy to watch for fans of crime cinema, as Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon gave multi-layered performances full of passion, angst and fury, but also humour and humanity, as they play the two undercover men for their respective organizations: DiCaprio as the police officer undercover in the Boston Mob, and Damon as his criminal counterpart acting as a mole inside the police. One surprising aspect of the film was that, as well as being tense and enthralling, it was very, very funny. Scorsese finds black humour in the darkest of circumstances, a lot of which comes from Jack Nicholson's scenery-chewing performance as mob-boss Frank Costello and Mark Wahlberg's foul-mouthed role as Staff Sergeant Dignam, who appears on screen mainly to yell amusing obscenities at DiCaprio. It was somewhat odd that Wahlberg received a Best Supporting Actor nod for this role, considering he has been much better and had more required of him in other roles, but the film gained much acclaim from the Academy that year, winning four trophies including Best Picture and Best Director.
