The New Republic October 26, 2006 Is Scorsese desperate? This screenplay has the scent of it, as if he is scraping for material to feed his basic filmic interests.
New Yorker October 9, 2006 This merrily vicious and violent Martin Scorsese film about cops and gangsters in Boston will never haunt your sleep, as Taxi Driver and Raging Bul...
Comparisons to Goodfellas and Casino notwithstanding, it has a verve and texture all its own. It also has, courtesy of William Monahan, some o...
Rolling Stone September 28, 2006 A new American crime classic from the legendary Martin Scorsese, whose talent shines here on its highest beams.
Chicago Reader October 5, 2006 With its welter of double crosses, The Departed is completely engrossing, a master class in suspense.
Daily Telegraph January 25, 2015 The Departed is an example of a cinematic master seeking to live up to the veneration with which he is regarded by his pupils.
The Departed is Scorsese’s most purely enjoyable movie in years.
TIME Magazine February 24, 2013 [A] very entertaining, densely layered, just-short-of-fabulous melodrama.
New Statesman January 25, 2015 Plausible psychological scrutiny loses out to shot after shot of brains being splattered. And boy, do you get a lot of brains for your buck. It&rsq...
Hollywood Reporter September 29, 2006 Scorsese’s relaxed energy infuses the film with excitement in every frame, thus elevating a gangster story to the level of tragedy.
www.thestar.com October 14, 2006 [A] glorious mess of a movie.
Independent February 27, 2018 If you like Scorsese, or if you just like thrillers, you’ll have a good time.
outlookindia.com January 17, 2019 The biggest draw, of course, are the star acts: Caprio, Damon and Mark Wahlberg in particular are electric.
This crime thriller is a profane, blood-drenched joy to watch.
It’s a stylish head rush of a movie that flies by, even at two-and-a-half hours, and keeps turning the knife (and your stomach) up to th...
As in his remake of Cape Fear, Scorsese has mucked up a B-movie he professes to love: producing something full of twists but devoid of that lo...
New York Post October 5, 2006 Scorsese’s sharpest film in a decade and the most entertaining major studio release this year.
Slant Magazine October 5, 2006 What begins as a breakneck descent into blunt cruelty and moral turmoil soon morphs into a cat-and-mouse game encumbered by self-consciously o...
Variety September 29, 2006 This reworking of a popular Hong Kong picture pulses with energy, tangy dialogue and crackling performances from a fine cast.
The argot of New York’s Little Italy is Martin Scorsese’s first language, but the filmmaker speaks fluent, pungent Bostonese in the ter...
Boston.com October 6, 2006 A relentlessly violent, breathtakingly assured piece of mean-streets filmmaking, the film shows the legendary director dropping the bids for indust...
Slant Magazine February 7, 2007 The Departed’s lucky-charmed score is one of many subliminal devices in the film: No one better lay a hand on Scorsese’s Oscar.
You’ll have to go back to GoodFellas to find a Marty movie this fun, this enamored of language, of ethnic slurs, of "Gimme Shelter," of...
Right from the pungent opening line, The Departed has that Goodfellas pop, from the first-rate cast to the sharp black comedy to the startling inci...
Freed from iconic figures and weighty themes, Martin Scorsese, in The Departed, gets to riff and rock. And the audience gets a huge, bloody, p...
This is a Martin Scorsese film of the classic sort. It has a high body-count and moments of sublime excess; the master is on form.
Austin Chronicle October 8, 2006 Watching this new film by Scorsese is tantamount to falling in love again with the brash, cinematic bad boy from New York City.
Too operatic at times, too in love with violence and macho posturing at others, it’s a potboiler dressed up in upscale designer clothes...
Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, a crime drama of thrilling breadth and intensity, takes place within Boston’s city limits, seems to hav...
Globe and Mail October 6, 2006 As so often before, the body count is high in a Martin Scorsese movie. But where once the bodies pulsated with life in all its vainglorious fu...
Martin Scorsese has got his groove back.
The Departed is Scorsese’s most entertaining picture in years, dense, violent (more of his screen sadism played for laughs), and satisfying.
Times (UK) January 23, 2015 Nicholson’s unsavoury grin and seedy menace are a joy to behold.
As ingenious as it is artificial.
As The Departed wears on, it becomes more exciting, more grimly funny and more nihilistic – and that nihilism has a lasting impact.
Salon.com October 7, 2006 Scorsese has put together a fantastic ensemble of actors: Some of the movie’s best performances are the ones tucked into the corners, li...
After a pair of flawed Oscar-hunting epics, Martin Scorsese has returned to the gritty, violent mob drama that has always been his strong suit...
Martin Scorsese returns to gangland in The Departed, a slick, soulful retelling of overrated Hong Kong actioner Infernal Affairs.
The storytelling here is a model of smooth precision.
The Atlantic January 25, 2015 Not only is The Departed not among the best of Scorsese’s films; it’s not even the best version of this film.
What makes this a Scorsese film, and not merely a retread, is the director’s use of actors, locations and energy, and its buried th...
For all its bloodletting, The Departed is an intoxicating film. It’s a film that’ll have your hands over your face with one eye pe...
ReelViews October 2, 2006 The original film was gritty and entertaining; the new version is a masterpiece – the best effort Scorsese has brought to the screen sinc...
New York Times October 5, 2006 Martin Scorsese’s cubistic entertainment about men divided by power, loyalty and their own selves finds the director back on the mean streets...
