In years to come, this will probably be considered one of the best films of 2006.

After the production upsets of Gangs of New York and the not-always-gripping The Aviator, Martin Scorsese is back in top form.  Yes, it is something of a variation on his favourite themes of gangsters, corruption and police, but it is a vivid and lively variation, excellent on all counts.

The starting point is the Hong Kong police thriller with the deadly play on words title, Infernal Affairs.  William Monahan has adapted this powerful and popular film (rather than a simple re-make) and set it in Boston.  The city itself comes alive with the different settings: police precincts, affluent apartments, mob hangouts and the streets themselves.  Yes, there are mean streets in Boston too.

This version of Infernal Affairs is easier to follow than the original.  A prologue establishes Frank Costello as a gangster chief over twenty years: protection rackets, moving into drug deals and then trading high tech military equipment.  He is kind to the neighbourhood lads, one in particular, Colin Sullivan, who is indebted to him so that when he graduates as a police officer, he is Costello’s informant in the service.

In the meantime, Bill Costigan, who has had a tough upbringing in South Boston is persuaded to go undercover, deep cover, to target Costello.  The screenplay dramatises the close parallels between the two men, their false identities, the contacts, the dangers.  It creates fine dramatic tension, especially since the screenplay is so well written.  It is also more character driven than action driven which gives the portraits of the two men greater depth.

Martin Scorsese is one of the best director craftsmen in the United States and has surrounded himself with strong talent in photography, production design and editing for many films.  He has assembled them again.

But no review would be complete without an acknowledgement of the marvellous performances he has drawn from all his cast.  As we watch Jack Nicholson as the charmingly vicious and sleazy Frank Costello, we appreciate why he has won such acclaim and awards.  It is a masterly characterisation, a personification of evil, often with a smiling face, which gradually overreaches itself and unravel.

Leonardo di Caprio is Bill.  Matt Damon is Colin.  They have proven themselves for over ten years as two of the best American actors of their times.  Di Caprio has the more straightforward role as the good man acting violent yet he too is subtle in communicating the anguish, the fears, the loss of identity of the man who is asked to live a lie and betrayal for the sake of a greater good.

Matt Damon has to act charming, respectable and efficient as a cover for growing ambition, treachery and Shakespeare’s dictum that one can smile and still be a villain.  His too is a subtle performance, an intelligent interpretation of duplicity.

There is an alarmingly fine cameo from Mark Wahlberg as an extremely rough mouthed officer who plays bad cop in interviews with potential undercover police while Martin Sheen brings his authoritative but genial persona as the head of the department.  Alec Baldwin is also very strong as the officer in charge of action, frustrated because of the leaks from his squad.

The world of gangsters is a world that none of us would like to be close to.  It is a tough, immoral, cruel and exploitative world.  It has to be combated by dedicated men who can withstand temptation to corruption and who have to wage war on the gangsters on gangster terms.  The Departed is a powerful reminder of this world. 

The writer drew on his Catholic background for the title, The Departed, the faithful departed.  However, he said this film is a portrait of the world of the faithless departed.

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