The Departed is an exceedingly well-craft piece of work. But I left the theatre disappointed because the story feels repetitive and fundamentally wrong. Just as in many of his films, Sorcese suggests that violence for violence’s sake is the general condition in America. Without question America is violent. Too violate for my taste. But no society can survive for 200 years in which the average members of society believes it is normal to kill innocent people. Scorcese’s superb film Gangs of New York has perhaps even more bloody scenes than The Departed but the historical narrative arrives at the crucial point that the modern state triumphed over the capricious violence that one member of society could inflict on the next. The Departed makes no sense. Scorcese assembles a superb cast whose acting is impeccable. But Jack Nicholson and company cannot compensate the absence of a story worth telling.