The Departed is about two cops on opposite sides of the Irish mob in South Boston. Headed by the ruthless Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) the mob is relentlessly hunted down by the police. To get inside information Costello grooms one of his guys (Matt Damon) from an early age to become a state police office. On the opposite side the cops send one of their agents (Leonardo DiCaprio) undercover as a mob insider. Each side senses there is a rat in their midst but are unable to figure out who it is. After everyone is double crossed at least once will the truth ever be revealed?
Filled with shoot outs and graphic fight scenes it is one of the edgiest and the most violent films to win Best Picture. This movie is great for many reasons including the dark twisty tale, the great performances, and intense action. Plus for me it was cool that it took place in South Boston since I used to work there and heard lots of stories about Whitey Bulger and the Irish mob there. The use of the Dropkick Murphys song "Shipping up to Boston" was used to maximum effect. Winning 4 awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing and only one nomination for the acting a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Mark Wahlberg as the foul mouthed agent Dingham. The biggest question is how did none of the other actors get nominated. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon should have been nominated for Best Actor and Jack Nicholson should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. All were great performances.
In my opinion no other movie that year stood a chance to win over this masterpiece and it seemed a forgone conclusion baring any surprise upsets like the previous year. While Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was considered the closest competition for Best Picture (it would have been the first foreign language movie to win Best Picture if it had won) for me it was Little Miss Sunshine the quirky comedy that was a distant second. The movie that I thought was grossly overlooked was Children of Men. Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay it is a great sci-fi movie that was one of the best movies of the year and should have been nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Clive Owen. The most ridiculous nomination was Borat for Best Screenplay which was mostly ad-libbed.
The other category that got lots of attention this year was for Best Documentary. The controversial Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth won. The movie was an extended version of his power point presentation on global warming. I found the movie to be very boring and thought Jesus Camp was a much more compelling documentary. About a controversial religious summer camp the movie follows the kids and manages to not take sides about what is taught in the camp.
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