Henry's Top 100: #07 - The Departed

The most "watchable" movie of all time?


We all have movies that no matter when we happen to catch them on T.V., right at the start, or near the end, we are delighted to see it and watch it until the finish.

Bill Simmons, the "Sports Guy" on ESPN, likes to talk about how Boogie Nights is one of these kinds of films. Well he's wrong. Boogie Nights is a well made, but pretty unwatchable, critical darling.

For my money, there is no movie that is more utterly watchable than 2006's The Departed.

It also happens to be, in my opinion, one of the 3 best movies of the last five years (Again, not favorite, but best). For me it goes Brokeback Mountain (one of the 10 best movies ever made), The Departed (A flawless picture), and most recently Slumdog Millionaire (Which would have been mega high on this list had I started to include 2008 films).

I could go into how this was DiCaprio's coming out party, or how Matt Damon, bizarrely, pulls off a scumbag role perfectly, or how this film sports the best supporting cast since Aliens...I could go on and and on and on about all those things. Or how this is the best remake ever (F*** you Sam [Sam prefers the orginal version which is a Chinese film called Infernal Affairs]), or how this is by far Scorsese's best film (Yeah, I'm looking at you Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas), or how this perfectly captures a side of Boston as never before, or has the best use of music of any film of all time (in my viewing experience at least)...again I could go on, and on and on...I really could. I adore this movie.

But what I will focus on for a bit is the first 18 or so minutes of the movie. The Departed contains the best pre-title sequence ever. Of course the title doesn't appear near almost 20 minutes in but whatever.

But everything, EVERYTHING, you need to know about the movie and it's characters is in the first bit of this film. Who Damon's character is, where DiCaprio's character comes from, the differences between our two protagonists, who our Big Bad is (Jack actually peaks in this first bravura sequence) and then it all comes to a crescendo with the Dropkick Murphy's "Shipping Up to Boston" and the title of the film.

I didn't ever quite buy into the the Scorsese thing. I liked Goodfellas, and The Last Temptation of Christ is a great film, but, other than that, I thought he was always over-rated. Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Gangs of New York, The Aviator...just didn't see it. But with The Departed Scorsese wrote himself a lifetime credibility bill with me. The Departed is perfectly constructed (it also might be the best edited film ever). It's a rough film, full of ugly and flawed people, but this movie hits every note just right.

God Damn do I love this movie...

Best Scene: Not really a scene...but the entire pre-title sequence. Especially Marky Mark and DiCaprio interacting.