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Eyes Glued to Dark Screen

"The Departed" is a riveting, edge-of-your-seat game of cat-and-mouse, and is probably this year's Best Picture Oscar Winner and Martin Scorsese's finest achievement. Scorsese has crafted the ultimate crime drama, a battle of wits, bullets, and cellular phones between an undercover cop planted with the mob by the police (Leonardo DiCaprio), and a corrupt cop planted with the police by the mob (Matt Damon), with Jack Nicholson deftly reinvented as the mob kingpin, and Martin Sheen as the head undercover cop.

This story is so tightly plotted and directed you'll regret getting up to pee, no matter how fast you run (as I did, three times in two hours and forty minutes. Damn those supersize diet sodas!). Methinks that Mr. Scorsese will finally be holding the gold statuette on his sixth try. Ironically, his last two tries, 'Gangs of New York' and 'Aviator,' were conscious Oscar bait, lavish period productions, while 'The Departed' focuses on what Scorsese does best, while taking it to a new level. I personally found several of his classics brilliant but hard to watch - 'Mean Streets,' 'Taxi Driver,' and 'King of Comedy' come to mind. This movie is very hard not to watch. Expect many nominations, particularly DiCaprio and Nicholson, possibly Martin Sheen as well. Probably not Matt Damon, who was fine but not exceptional. I haven't seen the competition, but so far my money's on 'Departed' for Best Picture and Best Director...

Check out Metacritic's "The Departed" page, with summaries of - and links to - reviews by the finest critics in the nation, with numericized 'scores' to help you measure 'relative value'....