The Departed (Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD)

The verdict is in and The Departed is the most entertaining movie of 2006. Of course there are people out there that will say otherwise, but that is only because they have another favorite, not because they don’t like this movie. Carrying a 93% rating over at RottenTomatoes it is almost unanimous and while some will say Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong film The Departed was spawned from, that too isn’t true. Infernal Affairs may be the jump off point, but The Departed is far better thought out.

Starring Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello, the center of attention, we have two sides waging war as a mole (Damon) in the Boston police department is out to help Costello and an undercover cop (DiCaprio) in Costello’s camp is out to bring him down.

The Departed is violent yes, but even better is the dialogue in this picture. Leonardo DiCaprio turned in his second best performance of 2006 here (Blood Diamond is number one) and Matt Damon is fantastic, but the best of the bunch are Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin.

Wahlberg has already earned an Oscar nomination for his part as lieutenant Dignam, the foul mouthed cop that plays right hand man to Martin Sheen’s Captain Oliver Queenan. Along with Baldwin, Wahlberg delivers fantastic lines in just about every single scene.

Of course, The Departed has some logic issues, but Infernal Affairs had the same problems, the only difference being that film added a little bit of dialogue to sew things up. A major difference, for those of you that have seen Infernal Affairs and not The Departed, is that The Departed spends a little more time on the characters and the development of the story which is why The Departed is about 45 minutes longer than the film it is based on.

As for the special features on this 2-disc special edition you get the film and the trailer on the first disc and the second disc carries the majority of the special features.

The first of which is nine deleted scenes with each being introduced by director Martin Scorsese. A few of these scenes are interesting and maybe one or two could have stayed in the film, but it doesn’t really matter either way. After that you have three great documentaries/featurettes, the longest of the three being the Martin Scorsese TCM documentary that previously aired on the classic movie channel. The 90-minute doc takes a look at all of Scorsese’s films other than The Departed, which is covered nicely in the two remaining featurettes.

“The Story of the Boston Mob” takes a look at the story that inspired Jack Nicholson’s character in the film and this is the real reason this movie succeeds. Instead of just taking Infernal Affairs and adapting it to the United States, screenwriter William Monahan also did his own research and added some additional story. I talked a lot more about this feature in this article, which gives you a bit more insight into the back-story and also potential ides should they go ahead and make a prequel to The Departed, much like they did with Infernal Affairs 2.

The final feature is called "Crossing Criminal Cultures" and it is described as a look at how Little Italy's crime and violence inspires Scorsese's work, and while it does primarily focus on that subject it is basically the making-of featurette for The Departed as it is the main focus of the featurette.

Overall, I would highly suggest you buy The Departed on DVD and if you have the money, buy the 2-disc special edition because the featurettes and documentaries on the second disc are all worth a look.