Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. You've seen many reviews of Martin Scorsese's newest, so I'll try to be brief.

In short, it's fucking amazing.

I honestly think this film already stands shoulder to shoulder with Scorsese's career best work and a lot of the reason for THE DEPARTED's success is the screenplay by William Monahan. The film is unexpectedly funny, the character dialogue sharp, the characters themselves all well-rounded and all interesting.

For those that don't know, THE DEPARTED is a remake of Andy Lau's brilliant INFERNAL AFFAIRS, a film about two moles, one a cop undercover in an organized crime ring and the other a plant within the police department. They each know about the other, but neither knows who is the mole, so the film is, at times, a cat and mouse story where both are trying to keep their cover while at the same time trying to figure out who the other mole is.

Scorsese and Monahan took the story out of the Hong Kong realm and set it in Boston, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon playing the two moles. They both give outstanding performances, but they're helped along with a brilliant supporting cast, all doing some of the best of their careers. Let's go over these guys:

- Jack Nicholson - Brilliant as the head mobster character. He's equal parts creepy, charming and demented. This is classic Jack chewing the scenery, making the most out of every moment he's in. Expect to see Jack sitting in his usual front row seat at the Oscars next year, but this time not as a spectator.

- Mark Wahlberg - He plays such a dick in this movie, but the kind of dick you love watching being a dickhead. He has some of the best lines in the movie. For example, "Who am I? I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy!" The man has many diamonds in this movie and quickly becomes an audience favorite. In any other film with any other cast he would have been the stand-out.

- Martin Sheen - Not as flashy as Wahlberg, but it's great seeing him in this film, especially since he plays an incredibly sympathetic guy.

- Alec Baldwin - Again, another colorful, alive, rich character. He's got some great lines, playing a very overeager detective.

Props also to the smaller supporting cast members like Mark Rolston (hooray for Drake making a rough badass character actor comeback), Anthony Anderson (in the movie for a little bit longer than his stint in HAROLD AND KUMAR, but good in the bits he's in, especially towards the end), Kevin Corrigan and Ray Winstone.

My only bit of criticism would have to be aimed at the middle of the film. While it never dragged for me, I do think it could have tightened up the middle a tad. I personally would have preferred a little more focus on the rush to find the other mole instead of the time we spend with DiCaprio's romance with Vera Farmiga. Those scenes are great, though, so I don't know what the answer is. I wouldn't want to lose those scenes, but I would have liked to seen a more suspenseful cat and mouse chase.

I don't know what else to say about the movie other than it's near the top of the incredible run of films I've seen in the last month. While I would love to see the Best Picture Oscar go to PAN'S LABYRINTH, I'll be the world's happiest geek to see THE DEPARTED take home the Best Picture with PAN'S taking the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Expect to see the Best Actor and Supporting Actor categories filled with Nicholson, Damon, DiCaprio and possibly Wahlberg and Baldwin.

Get thee hence to the theaters. This is one of the great ones.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com