“You don’t make up for your sins in church; you do it on the street; everything else is (expletive deleted), and you know it”

From “Mean Streets” (1973) directed by Martin Scorsese

Of all sins, deception proves the most elusive of absolution; for it is through lies and lying that Satan seeks man’s ruination. Such is the world of former seminary student-turned-film director Martin Scorsese, who has been setting morality fables in brutal urban streets for almost 40 years.

Violent, profane, rife with obsidian-black humor and, as with all Scorsese pictures, set to a soundtrack of classic rock music, “The Departed” is filled with countless deceitful, plague-carrying rats (both literal and figurative).

Through Scorsese’s lens, no one is completely innocent. All characters carry the guilt of mendacity and all must serve a penance. For most, this includes blood atonement.

“The Departed,” Scorsese’s latest meditation on the nature of sin and sinning, unfolds in the rotting bureaus of Irish South Boston and depicts two spies (artists of deception) – one working for the police, another working for the mob.

Employing long, sweeping steadicam as well as tracking and crane shots, Scorsese’s camera bottles lightning with an expert cast working at the top of their collective games. Playing alongside wily veterans Martin Sheen and Alex Baldwin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg deliver some of their finest, most nuanced work.

Jack Nicholson, playing a graying and wrinkled Satan, chews the scenery complete with an authentic “Southie” accent. Save for couple of scenes in which he gives a grotesque, pain-inducing, self-parodic imitation of himself, Nicholson reminds us he is one of America’s artistic treasures.

And so is director Martin Scorsese, who after stepping away from his comfort zone, returns to his greatest strength – telling contemporary stories about sinners paying for their sins on the streets.

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John Remington is a teacher at Pendleton High School.