Oscar Watch Continues: The Departed Delivers

Martin Scorcese's film The Departed is nominated for the Oscar in 5 categories:

• Best Picture
• Best Director
• Best Film Editing
• Best Adapted Screenplay
• Best Supporting Actor (Mark Wahlberg)

Here is a movie that is 2.5 hrs long, and you'll not believe it. The plot moves fast and never gives the viewer a moment's breathing space.

The actors are all at the very knife's edge in their games, and thanks to Scorcese, who is above all an actor's director, are able to deliver their full potentials. If DiCaprio (whom I, frankly, don't usually care for) wasn't nominated for Best Actor in Blood Diamond, which I've yet to see, he would have been nominated for this performance—it is his maturest and most complex performance yet. Everyone in the film is believable and so invested, it is impossible for the viewer not to buy their performances wholesale.

I cannot get into the plot, for fear of spoiling the movie for those who have yet to see it. The script is complex, and with a lesser director than Scorcese, could easily have fallen apart. Scorcese holds all the fragile threads of this film in his masterful grip, and delivers a flawless tapestry. Scorcese's long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker edits the film with unbelievable finesse. She is what all film editors should aspire to be: the invisible magician behind the curtain. I doubt I'm wrong in predicting this Oscar will go to her.

I haven't yet seen all of the films in the Best Picture and Best Director categories. I would not be sorry if both Oscars went to The Departed. The Academy, however, has never seen fit to give the Oscar to Scorcese, even though past masterpieces like Kundun (1997) would well have deserved it—and he is up against Academy favorite, Clint Eastwood. So chances are slim, if I were to guess pragmatically.

But, the long story short: this movie is all-around excellent. Your money and your time will be well spent on and with this movie. A.