by MARK SLUTSKY

Martin Scorsese’s been such a heartbreaker over the last few years. The dude is responsible for some of the best American movies ever—ever!—but over the last decade he really seemed to slide. Maybe he was reaching for that Oscar he deserved for Goodfellas or Raging Bull (or a handful of others), but Gangs of New York and The Aviator were both huge disappointments. Maybe they were tampered with, but somehow they didn’t even feel like they were made by Scorsese himself, despite the subject matter. And his partnership with Leonardo DiCaprio seemed kind of misguided—Leo’s character in Gangs was flat and confusingly motivated, and he just seemed so inappropriate for Howard Hughes.

So word that Scorsese was going to remake Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak’s 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, again with DiCaprio, left this fan... well, a little neutral. Hopeful, but with no expectations, because his recent track record was so depressing. But maybe a straight-up thriller was just what Scorsese needed, because The Departed is his best film in years. It may not depart (sorry) drastically from the original—basically, it’s a very straightforward remake—but perhaps that’s for the best, because overall it’s as satisfying a thriller as Infernal Affairs, surpassing it in some ways, but not quite measuring up in others.

If you’ve seen the original, not much about the plot will surprise you. Set in Boston, The Departed has Jack Nicholson as crime boss Frank Costello, who takes Southie youth Colin Sullivan (played as an adult by Matt Damon) under his wing, only to send him to police academy to train as a detective, so that he’ll always have a built-in loyal informer deep in the Massachusetts State Police. At the same time, cadet Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) is ordered by higher-ups (Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg) to secretly infiltrate Costello’s organization.

The two are opposite numbers in the organizations, and eventually they realize each other’s existence and are compelled to smoke the other out. Things get particularly complicated when Damon is assigned by both Nicholson and his superiors in the State Police to find the mole in each respective organization. DiCaprio, for his part, is in an even worse situation, as Wahlberg and Sheen are the only ones who can verify his real identity. It’s all very tangled, and the script (credited to William Monahan and original writer Siu Fai Mak) keeps it intricate but comprehensible.

And it’s nice to see Scorsese back to his old tricks again, with his sharp tracking shots and spiky editing (courtesy of longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker)—he seems to be having fun, and even if you know where the story’s going it’s gripping. In a lot of ways, it seems like a very self-conscious attempt to get the old magic back (especially in his choice of music—“Gimme Shelter” again?), but there’s no denying that a solid Scorsese thriller is nothing to sneeze at. Nicholson definitely hams it up but he’s certainly fun to watch, and Damon are both convincingly desperate and intense. Wahlberg, too, stands out, as this might be one of his first really strong performances where he doesn’t play a naïf or charming innocent.

The original Infernal Affairs was a great genre piece but no masterpiece, and that’s pretty much how The Departed squares up. It has some of its forbearer’s weaknesses—both feature soppy subplots with an attractive therapist (in this case, Vera Farmiga) meant to deepen the characters—but like the original, it’s a dark, twisty and satisfying thriller.

THE DEPARTED OPENS THIS FRIDAY, OCT. 6

>> Movie Listings