The Departed (2006): Limited Edition Steelbook [4K UHD/Digital]

In Stores April 23rd from Warner Bros.

I do not make it a secret that I don’t like “The Departed.” I never have liked it. I think one of the main reasons why I dislike it so much is that I had seen Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s 2004 original much earlier and was surprised with how cerebral and taut it was. “Infernal Affairs” was about betrayal, and loss of identity, and completely losing not only who we once were, but our own morality code. It’s shocking to me to know that “The Departed” is not only so infinitely dumbed down from its source material, but that Scorsese is capable of so much better than what he offers us.

In South Boston, the state police wants to end the reign of powerful mob boss Frank Costello. A young rookie, Billy Costigan, is assigned to infiltrate Costello’s mob. Another young cop, Colin Sullivan, is among a handful of elite officers whose mission is to bring Costello down. But Colin is working for Costello, keeping the crime boss one step ahead of the police. Each man becomes consumed by his double life, but when it becomes clear to both the mob and the cops that they have moles in their midst, Billy and Colin must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save themselves.

“The Departed” misses the point of the original film so much while working overtime to basically produce those golden awards that have been missing from Scorsese. While it’s cliché to make that claim for most directors, I watch “The Departed” and I am so fully aware that Scorsese is better than this. The movie is lifeless and dunderheaded, the whole sense of symbolism and allegory is gone, and Nicholson is obviously so far removed from the movie’s tone that he’s just allowed to improv most of the time that he’s on film. The idea of the cast is gone, the use of cellphones is gone, and the final scene involving the rat is so painfully on the nose, that it’s breathtaking.

To its credit the ensemble is stellar (duh), and folks like Alec Baldwin, Marky Mark and Leo DiCaprio are Oscar caliber. All things considered though, “The Departed” is just not Scorsese’s best.

This release transfers over the standard special features from the 2007 Blu-ray; one new retrospective extra is included, but the Blu-ray’s trailer is gone and one loosely-related legacy supplement — Richard Schickel’s 2007 feature length documentary “Scorsese on Scorsese” — still remains exclusive to the prior release. The New Guilt and Betrayal: Looking Into The Departed is a brief fifteen minutes retrospective produced by Rivendell Films and features director Martin Scorsese as he speaks candidly about The Departed.

He specifically mentions its earliest seeds of development soon after Gangs of New York, adapting the source material, assembling his cast and so much more. There’s the twenty one minute Stranger Than Fiction: The True Story of Whitey Bulger, Southie and The Departed, The twenty four minutes Crossing Criminal Cultures, and finally twenty minutes of Deleted Scenes with 9 clips total.