Scorsese is back!

His new movie “The Departed” kicks mucho ass! Jack Nicholson is back too and in fine form as a sleazy ganglord (with a few signature Jack flourishes, like a giant prosthetic penis that press reports indicate wasn’t in the shooting script).

Also showing up in elder-statesman roles are Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin as veteran cops, but this movie belongs to Nicholson and the Boys’ Club of Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and – much to my surprise – Leo DiCaprio.

Yes, that Leo DiCaprio.

Scorsese’s finally gotten his first convincing performance out of DiCaprio after allowing Leo to stink up both “Gangs of New York” and “The Aviator.” Both movies had elements to recommend them (Daniel Day-Lewis and Kate Blanchett, respectively), but DiCaprio sure as hell wasn’t one of them.

This movie’s two and a half hours fly by, even without any of Scorsese’s usual set-piece single-take steadicam shots. This is about character, plot and environment, and Scorsese dials back his usual directorial hamminess (which I love, don’t get me wrong) to tell this story of crooked cops and robbers in contemporary Boston.

I haven’t seen that many movies this year (parenting is a double-overtime-without-pay job as it turns out), but this is the first Great one, and probably Scorsese’s best since “Goodfellas,” definitely his best since he started using DiCaprio in every project.

I’m already beginning to get depressed, trying to imagine what populist, feel-good dreck (paging “Forrest Gump”…) will deny Scorsese his Oscar this year.