'œIt was about time,' said Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune. After four decades of superior filmmaking—and five Oscar snubs—Martin Scorsese finally won an Academy Award for directing. The Departed, a gritty cops-and-mobsters picture, also won Best Picture. The violent street drama, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, and Matt Damon, 'œwas a showcase for Scorsese's strengths, brilliantly directed.' It's no Raging Bull or GoodFellas, but as a characteristic Scorsese film, The Departed makes a fitting first win.
In recent years, Scorsese had earned nominations, but not awards, for such grandiose Oscar bait as The Aviator and Gangs of New York, said Jim Emerson in the Chicago Sun-Times. The Departed, by contrast, is a traditional genre picture, a remake of a 2002 Hong Kong crime movie. 'œSometimes you can come out ahead when you don't look like you're trying so hard.' As for the less exciting categories, 'œthe academy decided to spread the statuettes around.' Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan's Labyrinth, and An Inconvenient Truth—Al Gore's global-warming documentary—received a share of the honors.
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