Blu-ray Movie Reviews

What do you say about a Best Picture Winner? For one, I can say I didn't think it was the best movie I saw in 2006, even though I only saw a handful of movies. I can also say unequivocally that I don't agree at all that this is Martin Scorsese's best movie since the seminal Goodfellas in 1990. Kundun and The Aviator were as good or better. But Oscar had some catching up to do, and did so with a vengeance.

Unquestionably one of the greatest filmmakers living (or dead), Scorsese has gotten jobbed out of the Best Director Oscar numerous times, famously by actors-turned-director. Robert Redford won for Ordinary People the year Scorsese was up for Raging Bull, Kevin Costner won for Dances with Wolves the year Scorsese was nominated for Goodfellas, and most recently Clint Eastwood got the nod for Million Dollar Baby over Marty's rousing, energetic Howard hughes biopic The Aviator. But this year was all Marty's, and The Departed rode his coattails to Best Picture.

And truth be told, The Departed is an excellent genre picture, elevated by the power of the acting and Scorsese's unmistakable stamp as director. Fans would know this is a Scrosese movie five minutes in, as violence, church ritual and some Rolling Stones music coalesce in some flashback sequences. For me the only place it falters where Scorsese's other movies have triumphed completely is that other than Leonardo DiCaprio's Billy Costigan, this movie is about the complexities of story and plot more than character. I also think that in tying up the loose ends, the movie hits one note and runs with it, like it was too tiresome to maintain the layers of depth all the way to the end. And hell, they're probably right since the movie's two and half hours as it is!

But I mean that as more of an observation than a criticism. This is a brutally entertaining movie, with plot twists and machinations galore, and a genuine torrent of suspense running through the movie as the story unravels. The role reversals that occur within the story are fascinating as the veneers of the characters played by DiCaptrio and Damon are mirrored- neither is at all what he seems. I also have to add that while people constantly accuse Jack Nicholson of playing Jack, here he's complex and more than just Jack. There's a lot of testosterone in this movie, and the actors are as "guy" as they come with Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and others supplying supporting roles with vigor. This is cop movie pulp fiction at its best.

Warner's VC-1 1080p transfer is a revelation. It's just awesome to me that we're getting transfers like this in HD day and date with DVD. This is a movie with a lot of dark interiors and exteriors, and yet it's always rich and replete with detail and very fine textural elements in place, rock solid. Shadow detail is excellent, and a fine layer of grain adds to the cinematic feeling of the transfer. Colors are rich and saturated, and the most minor details in flesh tones and costumes are three-dimensional and palpably real. A first-rate transfer no doubt., near reference quality transfer no doubt.

The soundtrack is encoded with Dolby TrueHD losless, but there isn't much going here sonically. It's a dialog driven movie, and even the pop music that's used sporadically throughout isn't as compelloing as I might have thought. These are the choices made in teh sound design, not the encoding. The dialog is always clear and intellgiible, and the score benefits tremendously from the TrueHD encoding. Occasionally gunfire lights up the soundstage, but this mostly a subdued movie soundtrack that's about story and dialog. Note that Warner also released this movie on Blu-ray Disc with an uncompressed PCM soundtrack. I received the HD DVD screenr only so no comparisons were possible as of this writing.

There are some nice extras, including nine deleted scnes with intros by scorsese, and a featurette on the influence Scorsese's Little italy upbrning has had on his career as a filmmaker. But the one that had my wife and staying up extra late was the featurette entitled Story of the Boston Mob: The Real-Life Gangster Behind Jack Nicholson's Character This piece tells the story of James "Whitey" Bulger, a rea life gangster who's still at large and reputedly number two on the FBI's Most Wanted List behind only Osam Bin Laden! Every bit as compelling as the movie itself, which is a compliment.

The Departed makes its debut on HD DVD as combo disc with DVD on one side. If your'e fan of Scorsese or this genre in general, this is one to own.

Picture: 9.5 out of 10

Sound: 6.5 out of 10

Video reviewed on Marantz VP-11S1 1080p DLP projector, 80" wide Stewart Filmscreen Studiotek 130 screen and Toshiba HD-XA2 player via HDMI to Anthem AVM 50. Audio sent as PCM over HDMI to Anthem AVM 50. Ayre MX-R monoblocks and Theta Dreadnaught power amps, and Vandersteen loudspeakers. All video cables by Bettercables, all audio cables by AudioQuest