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Martin Scorsese sets a meaty stew of talent before us in this masterpiece of a cop-drama. It’s rooted in the Massachusetts Police Academy, and for new recruits Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) their time on the force will mean more than merely policing the state: Colin is a mole for a malevolent Irish mobster named Costello; Billy is a reformed ne’er-do-well charged with the task of infiltrating Costello’s gang. Both have weathered difficult childhoods; both fall in love with a psychiatrist named Madolyn (Vera Farmiga). And so their stories plait together.

At the heart of this tale sits the subject of trust; a want of it and a lack of it, for both rookies live in a world so mangled by corruption neither police nor government can be trusted. Damon and DiCaprio are exceptional, their baby-faced appeal
Elsewhere, has there ever been such a magnificent portrayal of pure, in-the-bone-marrow badness as Jack Nicholson in the role of Frank Costello? Expect his seaside slaying of a woman, with its accompanying observation “She fell funny”, to have entered the general consciousness by this time next Wednesday. There are star turns too from Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen as cops, and from Ray Winstone as Costello’s enforcer. The violence is not relentless - though its bristling threat seems somehow louder set against one of those wonderful Scorsese soundtracks: The Beach Boys, Patsy Cline, Van Morrison. This is, in short, another Scorsese classic. However much you might enjoy other films this year they are unlikely to match the clout of The Departed. For God’s sake, give this man an Oscar.