-“I’m gonna go have a smoke, you want a smoke? Oh, that’s right, you don’t smoke. What are you, some kind of fitness freak? Go fuck yourself!”

The Departed is way up there as one of the most entertaining films in Martin Scorsese’s catalogue. Not the best, but one that skates by on a pad of butter each time I watch it. Is it as good as its source material, Infernal Affairs? I honestly can’t remember (I saw IA ten years ago, at least), but if there’s anything that sets the two films apart, it’s the manic energy of William Monahan’s dialogue.

Now the Oscar winner is writing a story based on a 2012 New Yorker article about a failed drug enforcement program that killed a lot of kids. Kids with minor drug possession charges were flipped, put back on the streets and in one case, tortured before they were killed. This happened.

I haven’t read the article—something I’ll remedy today—but that seems like a lot of dramatic potential for any screenwriter to work with. Fingers crossed.

From Deadline.