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The Departed
Reviewed by: Glenn Gaslin (February/March 2007 issue of Moving Pictures)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alec Baldwin. Released by Warner Bros. Production budget: $90 million. Box office (U.S.): $117 million. Box office (worldwide): $196 million.
There hasn't been a movie this manly, this grizzly, since Glengarry Glen Ross, and it only grows more hair on DVD. This tale of two warring families - the Massachusetts state police and Nicholson's mafia-like outfit - riffs on loyalty, identity and romance, to epic and supremely entertaining effect. The unflinching violence and knotty plot twists keep a manic tension, but the real joy is watching Nicholson, Wahlberg and Baldwin engaged in machine-gunning dialogue, set against DiCaprio and Damon's quiet, hulking masculinity. And on disc, so many of Nicholson's soliloquies and Wahlberg's quips are worth rewinding, if for no other reason than to postpone the inevitable Shakespearean climax. |
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