IFDB Review: Departed Recut, The:

The Departed: Recut gives a minor facelift to the classic thriller of moles and double agents. Like a skilled plastic surgeon, Neglify makes deft nips and tucks at strategic points in the story. Twenty-two minutes are cut but it feels like less.I watched the fanedit first and the original version afterward. I preferred the fanedit and thought almost all the cuts were improvements. The uncovering of the mole is more suspenseful; even though the identity starts to become pretty obvious after a while, it was more satisfying to get it through clues than to get it by spoon feeding. After the mole is revealed Neglify trims scenes that are on-the-nose or cartoonish.The Departed is a movie with bravura camera direction and editing, you could even say it shows off when the intercutting between Costigan and the mole gets hyperkinetic. Neglify tones this down so the pace of the fanedit is better and more consistent. I disagreed with cutting Madolyn being pregnant. It makes Sullivan's motives for burning down the whole operation stronger and it sets up the blow-off scene at the funeral which I liked. But still The Departed: Recut is my go-to version now.

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