I skipped The Departed when it played in theaters. It looked like a routine, hyper-violent police procedural. But I added it to my Netflix cue when it won Best Picture.

It starts slow, and does indeed appear to just a bones-breaking-guns-shooting tough guy flick. For the first twenty minutes, I wondered: this won Best Picture? But then the narrative strands start to come together, and the tension begins building. And with a cast of bright lights, most of the scenes are intense curios, full of deep, intimate portrayals that never approach the obvious.

Among films that have won Best Picture, it still lacks some larger value, like the way last year’s winner, Crash, dealt with race relations. Departed is essentially just entertainment, but engaging entertainment. (Although by the end, the body count gets pretty absurd…)