The Departed will go down in history as the movie that finally
gave Martin Scorsese an Academy Award for best director. Many could argue it
was a career award as there are plenty of other movies he made that could have
earned him the prize decades earlier. Goodfellas
and Raging Bull come to mind, but The Departed easily earns its place
among them. Scorsese had tackled stories about organized crime before, however
this one has a particular Irish feel not to mention one hell of a story about
criminals, cops, and the choices they make.
The film was
released in the fall of 2006, right in time for awards season. A smart move
since it ended winning the Oscar for best picture. That fall I was spending my
first semester at the University of Sherbrooke and couldn’t wait to see it
after seeing the superbly edited trailer featuring not just The Rolling Stones’
Gimme Shelter (of course), but also I’m Shipping Up to Boston by The
Dropkick Murphys and a cover of Comfortably
Numb by Van Morrison. Like Quentin Tarantino, Scorsese has a great taste in
music. I don’t have a DVD or a Blu-Ray of The
Departed, but a few months after it came out got the soundtrack. One of
these days I ought to remedy that.
Based on the 2002
Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, The Departed essentially deals with two
liars. Billy Costigan (Leonardo Di Caprio) is a Boston cop whose family has
ties to organized crime. He makes it clear that he is not his family, but
Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and the foul-mouthed Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark
Wahlberg) think this will give him the perfect cover to infiltrate the
organization of Irish mobster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson).
Unbeknownst to
them, but known to the audience right from the beginning, Costello has a mole
of his own in the police organization having taken sergeant Collin Sullivan (Matt
Damon) under his wing when he was growing up in his neighbourhood. Whenever the
cops are closing on one of Costello’s deals, Sullivan gives him a heads up and
of course Costigan notices and gives his superiors a heads up.
It can’t be a coincidence
Costigan and Sullivan share similar sounding names, look alike, and even sleep
with the same woman (Vera Farmiga). Whether they like it or not, they are
mirror images of each other. For the people they are spying for they are
infiltrators, but for the people they are spying on they are rats. Morally
speaking you should be rooting for the cop, but as Nicholson puts it during a
brilliant opening monologue about cops and criminals, when you’re facing a
loaded gun, what’s the difference?
Speaking of
Nicholson, one thing I can’t understand is why his performance did not earn him
at least a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. As Costello he manages to be
both frightening and darkly funny, whether while trying to determine whether or
not Costigan is the rat, or while meeting Sullivan at a porn cinema while
brandishing a dildo. He is certainly a dangerous man who takes pleasure in his
work executing his competition with his right-hand man Mr. French (Ray
Winstone) and in his downtime likes to relax by having sex with prostitutes
after throwing cocaine over them like it was snow. It’s a mesmerizing
performance, but somehow Wahlberg gets the nomination?
Award
discrepancies aside, The Departed
should be remembered for top-notch performances from everyone involved,
Scorsese’s stellar camera work as usual, and a tense script by William Monahan
that piles on the surprises until the very end.
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