The Departed pick-ups nicely after two other great Martin Scorsese organized crime classics, Goodfellas and Casino. This time we travel to my hometown of Boston, where we find Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) as an undercover cop for the Boston PD, sent by Dignam (Mark Walberg) to obtain evidence on high-ranking crime boss, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Costello has a few tricks up his own sleeve as he has a plant in the Boston PD by the name of Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). This intense game of cat and mouse continue throughout the film with a very surprising ending.

Video

For this release, Warner Brothers went with a VC-1 transfer on to a Blu-ray 50GB disc (BD50) and the result was nothing short of stunning. This easily ranks among the best releases I have seen in terms of picture quality on either HD format. I saw absolutely no grain and no motion artifacts at all in this 2.40:1 transfer. This transfer was also absent of other annoying nuisances such as noise and macro blocking. The colors and skin tones for this release were spot-on and quite vivid. In many of the scenes of the Boston city line it appeared as though you were looking out a picture window. As I mentioned before the video quality of this release was simply stunning.

Audio

For this viewing, I watched using the PCM 5.1 option and as usual this sound format blew me away. Much of this movie is dialog and the sound encoding on this disc made very very good us of the center channel in a 5.1/7.1 speaker system. In many of the gunfire/explosion scenes the LFE and surrounds were put through their paces with a barrage of multiple sound effects. For example towards the end of the film there is a big shootout sequence at a local warehouse. During this sequence it literally felt as though you were sitting in the middle of this gunfight as bullets were flying all around. Again PCM proves to be the sound format to beat in the new HD formats.

Special Features

On this, the Blu-ray release of The Departed, we get all of the same extras found on the HD DVD version…

• Deleted Scenes: Here we get 9 different deleted scenes with an introduction by Martin Scorsese. Most of the scenes are definitely worth the watch once through, but after the first glance, none of the scenes really felt like they would have added much to the final film.
• The Story of the Boston Mob: This one runs 20 minutes and covers the story behind the basis of Jack Nicholson?s character. I personally found this one highly informative and well worth the time. Comments are made some journalists and a couple members of the Boston Police Department.
• Crossing Criminal Cultures: Running 24 minutes, this feature works as a comparison piece. Scorsese? other films, including Goodfellas, are looked at in a cross companion method.
• Theatrical Trailer: The film?s Theatrical Trailer is shown.

Final Thoughts

I can confidently say this was the best movie I have seen from 2006. To me this film complete the Scorsese mob trilogy; the other two being Goodfellas and Casino. Although I would not rate this film as being ?better? then Goodfellas, I would rate it as being ?better? then Casino. The storyline is strong, and keeps you thinking throughout and leaves you shocked more then once. The character development of DiCaprio, Damon and Nicholson is a work of art and should garner some Academy Awards and the Directing of this story is nothing short of great, as we have come to expect from Scorsese. In addition to a great story this releases delivers in both picture quality and audio quality, some of the best I have seen on either HD format. With all things considered I very highly recommend this purchase.

Special Features List

• Deleted Scenes
• The Story of the Boston Mob
• Crossing Criminal Cultures
• Theatrical Trailer