The Departed – 2007
Martin Scorsese returns to the gangster genre with his take on the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs, making it only remake of a foreign film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Telling the story of Leonardo DiCaprio’s undercover cop as he tries to infiltrate an Irish gang in South Boston ran by Jack Nicholson’s menacing (and real life boss) Frank Costello while Matt Damon’s mole struggles to play all sides. J
ack Nicholson was Scorsese’s second choice for the role of Costello as he originally wanted Al Pacino because he had never worked with Pacino before, but he turned it down. He would eventually get to work with Pacino as he cast him as Jimmy Hoffa in another of his gangster epics, The Irishman.
