Just got back from watching The Departed, starring Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson. I’m still a little bit in shock.

Synopsis: The mob (i.e. Jack Nicholson) grooms a young boy (Matt Damon) into one of their own, and because the boy starts young, he was able to build his life in a double-agent way, entering the State Troopers police academy and legally became a cop, quickly promoting within its ranks thereby working on the inside and spying for the mob. The police (i.e. Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg) takes one of their own (Leonardo DiCaprio) with a shady family history and has him infiltrate the mob as their informant. Add a few guns and blood and you have a fun, intense, cat and mouse and rat game. There’s even a hint of sex when the two rats schlup the same shrink.

Hot guy hubba hubba factor: pretty damn high. Shirtless and muscle-clad.

Entertainment value: great if you like violence and mafia and deception; twists in plot

Acting: pretty damn good. You really do believe the characters and stress out with them. Leonardo DiCaprio has redeemed himself out of the Titanic Guy role for me. Matt Damon is no longer the innocent underdog from Good Will Hunting.

Ending: seriously. Really? Come on. The only conceivable worse cop-out (no pun intended) ending would be if Leonardo DiCaprio suddenly wakes up in bed in a cold sweat, in his nice neat suburban home next to his beautiful wife, 2.5 kids and dog in the yard, and his wife asks, “What happened, honey?” “Oh, I just had the worse nightmare!” The End. I mean, it was like Quentin Tarantino stepped in the last 10 minutes of the direction and said, “I’ll take over from here. You guys liked Natural Born Killers and Kill Bill, right?” Tightly woven plot, clean script through a complicated situation all the way through, great smart-ass cracks, nice one-liners and suspense, and then BAM! Pulp Fiction. I dunno. Mr. W and his daughter are hoping for an alternate ending when the DVD comes out.

Not being a fan of violence or blood and gore, I watched this because I wanted to support Jennifer Aniston (and Brad Pitt, :P)’s production company, Plan b Productions, which produced this movie. At the ending, Mr. W turned to me and said, “Your girl produced this?” and laughed at me. Sigh…