In basing his new film on the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, Martin Scorsese brings a crew of tough-guy actors back to his own mean streets in New York. Perhaps he’s hoping for another round of Goodfellas-style success, but as his former stalwarts—from Keitel to Pesci—are apparently too old for this stuff, Marty’s left to work with the guy who nearly sank his Gangs of New York and couldn’t get The Aviator off the ground. So The Departed sees Leonardo DiCaprio as a member of an elite, undercover police squad bent on bringing down a mob-boss played by Jack Nicholson. Meanwhile, there’s a rat in the group, a seemingly squeaky-clean cop (Matt Damon) who is also on the mob’s payroll. Looks like we’ll have to settle for Nicholson’s Mephistophelian bad guy to give this one some edge.
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