Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006)

While I suspect that this might be one of the more unpopular choices of this series so far, I am actually extremely happy to include it. After being incredibly disappointed by Scorsese's films since Bringing Out The Dead, I had particularly looked forward to The Departed. However with my first viewing I only found it to be a partial return to form. Revisiting the film though has been a great treat and I now think it's his finest work since Casino and possibly The Age of Innocence. Complaints that Scorsese is revisiting themes he has explored time and time again don't ring true to me as I expect my favorite filmmakers to return to many of the same thematic and personal obsessions throughout their career. The Departed is a thrilling and hugely entertaining film, and and Martin Scorsese is one of the few American filmmakers who would place a film in my best of lists of the seventies, eighties, nineties and now this decade. God bless him...