Some days, going to the movie theater is a lot like coming home to a half a bowl of ramen noodles sitting in the refrigerator. And it’s mostly broth. And the fridge’s compressor crapped out last night.

But “The Departed.” “The Departed” is coming home to steak just slapped on the grill and a good bottle of wine and working appliances. You want to go up to genius director Marty Scorcese and kiss him right on those funny furry eyebrows, pinch screenwriter William Monahan’s big Boston jowls, and say “Honey! You shouldn’t have.”

Loosely based on a Hong Kong thriller, “The Departed” is more than steak and wine. With a passel of surl and crude-wit from Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin, it’s the movie version of that gourmet dinner that made headlines in Bangkok where guests paid $25,000 for a eight-serving meal of lobster, caviar, truffles and creme brulee of foie gras. (Lead female Vera Farmiga, as Madolyn, is the unknown of the cast - the foie gras creme brulee, as it were. I don’t know how good a burnt cream custard could be made out of goose liver, but for some reason, none of the regular Hollywood cheesecake showed up to take the role, and from what I can tell, for the better.)

In this version, Frank Costello, an Irish mob boss in Boston, implants Colin Sullivan as a mole inside the Massachusetts State Police. Simultaneously, Billy Costigan is employed by the police to

infiltrate Costello’s crew. When the two catch wind of the other’s involvement, they are dispatched to discover each other’s identities.

The origami-complex loyalties and betrayals of the movie recall the best of The Sopranos, the finest of James Bond. Policeman Colin Sullivan (Damon), has been in Irish mob boss’ rock star Frank Costello’s (Nicholson’s) pocket since youth. Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) is hired by the police to infiltrate Costello’s gang. And though the audience appears to be the only party in on the plumbing efforts of the police and the mob, as they try to find their own leaks, the movie pays off in the end, when everything gets turned upside down once and for all. Money was spent in buckets on The Departed, from the graphic novel-like editing and multitasking storytelling to the soundtrack (The Rolling Stones, Patsy Cline, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, and especially the Dropkick Murphys, which provide the rollicking drunk

Irish heartbeat of the film). And without falling in love with fast cars and stuff that blows up to conceal weaknesses, there are still enough skulls being stove in at delis and bodies falling from high rises to keep things interesting, to keep the bloody soup from scumming over.

The bucks were well spent cementing the film firmly in “classics” territory. How can you put a price tag on Costello’s comment after a seaside execution of an unknown screaming lady, where he grunts,

“Jeez, she fell funny”? Or the predilection of Costigan, who got kicked out of boarding school for mauling someone with a folding chair, for drinking cranberry juice? Or the deadpan code-laced

conversations Costello and Sullivan have about dinner? Or the name Myles Kennefick?

Of course, there’s a whole subclass of people who are lost causes when it comes to the blue language and crimson spatters that color the movie. People who think even movie criminals should be above

lines like “no ticky, no laundry.” As any good story about crime and punishment and deceit and trust should be, it’s juicily vile and politically incorrect. But if you prefer your men prancing and mincing

in little green tights, go pick up a DVD of Disney’s “Peter Pan.”

Ashley O’Dell reviews movies that aren’t in the theaters anymore. She lives in North Hollywood, near the In-N-Out Burger.