Don't know if its been posted yet but here's another 100 on meta (total 6 so far) this one a rave from LA weekly: http://www.laweekly.com/best-of-la-2006/-cops-and-robbers/14705/ While I admired DiCaprio’s Howard Hughes in The Aviator more than his woefully unconvincing lover-fighter in Gangs, there was still precious little sense of an inner life to the character. He was fine as Hughes the hotshot entrepreneur, but as Hughes the toenail-and-urine-preserving obsessive he was a jumble of actorly “technique” in search of a center. Here, there are a few scenes in which you fear for the worst — during his first meeting with the court-ordered shrink (Vera Farmiga) who also happens to be Sullivan’s live-in girlfriend, DiCaprio so self-consciously mimics the young Robert DeNiro that you wish Farmiga would reach over and slap him. So DiCaprio really is the new De Niro then. Scorsese’s hits are nothing to sniff at. Indeed, the very vibrancy of this movie is tied to its familiarity, to the thrill of seeing “Marty” shrug off his yen for enshrinement in some ersatz canon and rekindle the old razzle-dazzle — the pulse-quickening energy, the restless zooms and tracking shots, the explosions of gory violence — that once made every young film student in America want to be him (before they decided they wanted to be Tarantino instead). Maybe, just maybe, he might finally nab that elusive Oscar. But if so, I hope he doesn’t bother to show up. Love the last line, but alas Marty is way too humble to not show up even though he's been snubbed so many times.

St Petersburg Times: http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/05/Weekend/A_killer_crime_story.shtml

Added the LA Weekly's writer's comments before and following those Mantas posted: "The Departed marks Scorsese’s third consecutive collaboration with DiCaprio, and it’s the first one in which you really understand what the director sees in his young muse." "But for most of the movie, as Costigan plunges deeper into Frank’s crew, and as those few who know his true identity begin dropping like flies, DiCaprio harnesses a terrific, buggy intensity reminiscent of GoodFellas’ hopped-up Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). "

Thanks so much everyone for all these wonderful reviews. They make great reading 8) 8)

Reviews
8) Love reading all these gorgeous reviews. They just keep getting better and better. Thanks for all those imdb comments, lena. I especially enjoyed reading DiCaprio’s praise coming from that bunch! Capone’s beginning is a hilarious one of a kind review... Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. You may have noticed, but I don’t tend to work blue in my writing. There are family members who read my reviews, and they don’t much care for the four-letter words. That doesn’t mean I don’t throw in the occasional curse word every so often, but if you look at my body of work, I usually only get dirty when I hate a movie so much, it makes me mad enough to do so. This is not the case with the la-*test*-('") Martin Scorsese masterwork The Departed. Oh no. Holy motherfucking shit, this movie rocks 18 different sizes and shapes of balls. Balls were rocked so hard, in fact, I think certain areas of the taint may have been injured. I walked out of this movie stumbling from exhaustion and with an awesome sense of uncertainty. How was I going to do this film justice in a review? Maybe I just did. e of a kind! Thanks Abstract. Love hearing the comparison of DiCaprio to Liotta's Henry Hill. I'm enjoying Ray on Smith since I started watching it to see the TD promos.

Stuckonlife, Abstract, Mantas Thanks for more great reviews :) More good reviews http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-10-5/46542.html Performances by this A-listed ensemble cast are exceptional, with Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio topping all. Nicholson takes over the character Costello, making the role his own. The audience is completely absorbed by him, and there are no fine lines that hide the true evil that he symbolizes, something that Nicholson pushes towards the forefront. DiCaprio equally brings his best performance yet in film and the true highlight of "The Departed" is reflected across the many moments when both are on-screen together. And another ... http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/05/Weekend/A_killer_crime_story.shtml The all-star cast never disappoints, with several actors arguably doing their best work ever. That's particularly true with DiCaprio, who never appeared this convincingly tough before. Like most movie cops working undercover, he gets too close to his prey, too settled in the vices of his trade. DiCaprio makes every nervous twitch and psychotic reaction ring true. Ditto for Damon, employing his signature frat boy charm in nefarious ways. However, the star of The Departed sits behind the camera. Scorsese may not wish to be known only as a crime dramatist, but when it's something nobody else has ever done as well, why complain? He played the Academy Awards' game with a historical epic (Gangs of New York) and a stodgy biography (The Aviator) and got nowhere near the podium. With The Departed, the legendary director may have sent them an offer that, finally, they can't refuse.

The New York Post http://www.nypost.com/.../dearly_departed_movies_lou_lumenick.htm Martin Scorsese has stopped chasing that elusive Oscar long enough to return to his roots with the crime thriller "The Departed," his sharpest film in a decade - and the most entertaining major studio release this year.

Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star - 4/4 stars Jack Garner of the Huntington Herald Dispatch - 4/4 stars

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone posting links to reviews. I can't keep up anymore, but it's nice to have the links here, so I can look at them later on. :) ---------------------------- FreshTomatoes: 96% Metacritic: 91 BFCA: 91 ----------------------------

Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve - Grade : B+

Arnz Thanks for more great reviews :) Will Thanks for la-*test*-('") critic ratings :) Yes..we truly have a treasure chest of reviews here to read and read again.... Will make sure to keep the Peanut ears 'on alert' to hear the "TD" comments on the streets of Boston....maybe I can pretend I'm doing a survey for local radio station :roll: Just think one more day to SHOW TIME !!!! :)

John Thomason of Orlando Weekly - 5/5 stars Matthew Turner of the View London - 4/5 stars Rich Cline of the Shadows on the wall - 5/5 stars Charlotte O'Sullivan of the this is london.co.uk - 2/5 stars Phil Villarreal of the AZ nightbuzz - rave JAMES CHRISTOPHER of the Times Online - 4/5 stars Josh Larsen of the Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) - 3.5/5 stars Ross Anthony of the Hollywood Report Card - 2/4 stars ....weird because the grade is B too...anyway 2nd rotten on rottentomatoes.

This one been done yet? Cops, crooks a la Scorsese Nicholson, Damon, DiCaprio as a boss, weasel and mole BY GENE SEYMOUR October 6, 2006 One hears there were actually movie mavens who believed matching Martin Scorsese with the 2002 Hong Kong police thriller "Infernal Affairs" was a bad idea. Either these guys didn't see the original Andrew Lau-Alan Mak movie or they have no idea what Scorsese's been about since "Mean Streets." Who but Scorsese would be better at wallowing in the story's blood-soaked grit and probing the moral-spiritual conundrums it raises - from being either a cop pretending to be a crook or a crook pretending to be a cop? "The Departed," which situates the Lau-Mak storyline in contemporary Boston, matches expectations for roughly two-thirds of its somewhat distended 2 1/2-hour running time. Any Scorsese film is going to give you sustained stretches of powerful filmmaking, especially when ace editor Thelma Schoonmaker is working at full throttle, as she is here. So is "Departed" a bad match of director and story? Hardly. Does the result approach the respective levels of "Raging Bull" or "GoodFellas"? Not quite. Part of the problem - and it hurts even to suggest this - is Jack Nicholson's performance as Frank Costello, the dark lord of Boston crime, who is the primary target of a Massachusetts State Police strike force. With his hair askew and his brow slam-dancing throughout, Nicholson puts on a galvanizing and flamboyant show as a sneering, malevolently brilliant slimeball. And yet, every time you watch Nicholson doing his Daffy-Duck-as-Roman-Emperor routine, you can feel the performance drifting away from the rest of the movie; almost as if it were a gaudy sideshow instead of the core of the movie's tension. However much Nicholson lunges for our attention, the movie's overall momentum rests in the hands of both Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as, respectively, Costello's mole in the police department and the undercover trooper embedded in Costello's inner circle. Though he may overdo the darting-eyes bit a tad, Damon makes a convincing weasel while DiCaprio, wound tight as a tuned cello's thinnest string, delivering his most focused work yet for Scorsese. But even they don't own the most engaging performances in the movie. It's the supporting players, especially Alec Baldwin as the cops' preening commander and Mark Wahlberg as a grouchy, abusive detective, that give "The Departed" its flavor and bite. They're given chewy dialogue, courtesy of screenwriter William Monahan, that carries more foul invective per cubic yard than anything due east of David Mamet. Not even the luminous Vera Farmiga, as a police shrink attracted to both Damon and DiCaprio, escapes the torrents of bile. NEWSDAY

Here's the review from film site joblo.com, thay give it a 9/10 http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=13084