Of course, since I have kids, I'm way behind the curve when it comes to popular culture. Anyway, I saw "The Departed" last week and how about that Leo DiCaprio? Aside from the fact that he has great hair - turns out the boy can really act. I know we're all supposed to remember his Oscar nominated turn in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? which I think was more of a newbie bursting on the scene. And more often than not it takes a real actor to rise above being nominated too early in their career and spending the rest of their life trying to live up to the hype (like her and her and even him). But he had the big hit with Titanic which was really a pitch right over the plate for him - let's see look really cool and romantic and die a tragic death for true love? Piece of cake.
Anyway he totally pulls off the desperate intensity needed for this role and was able to carry the main narrative thread of the film convincingly. On top of that, he actually seemed like a grown-up and not a boy anymore. You know, the thing that the greatest actor of his generation had from day one.
Maybe it also helped him that he was surrounded by a dream cast, not least of which is Matt Damon in one of those roles he loves to take where he's intensely unsympathetic for such a pretty boy. Which is of course what makes it possible for him to pull it off. Something his best buddy Affleck can't do outside of his freakish private life.
And finally it's Marty too proving that he's a true master. This movie was a complicated weaving of conflicting plotlines and converging character arcs that in the hands of a director with inferior artistic sensibilities might have devolved in incoherence. But Scorsese continues to prove that his films are always worth seeing even if, as an artist, he has lapses. When you're this good you need to be seen.
I almost forgot Jack - my Dad jumped in to remind me. I'll give you Dad's opinion since it so closely mirrors my own - Jack's being Jack. That's what they hired him for and that's what he gave them. We liked him (infinitely) better in something else, right Dad?