The Departed (2006)

 The Departed

Martin Scorsese

USA

“We have a question: Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to appear to be a cop?”

Martin Scorsese is great film. He lives and breathes the medium. From hearing him talk, it is hard to imagine a conversation that happens in his vicinity that is not somehow related to film. Scorsese is president of The Film Foundation, an organization devoted to the restoration and preservation of the artform. The way I always remember him is in interviews, speaking at rapid-fire, discussing other films with so much passion and enthusiasm. He is a prolific director that has produced masterpieces such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Mean Streets, The King of Comedy and my personal favorite, Raging Bull. In recent years he put out greats like The Aviator and Gangs of New York. Somehow he had never won an Oscar for Best Director or Best Picture until The Departed came out. When he won, he jokingly asked them to “double-check the envelope”.

The Departed is Scorsese's third film with lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio and it is also their best. The movie is based on a Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs, in which a cop is put into deep undercover to infiltrate a Triad gang, while a member of the gang does the same in the police force. Both films have fantastic star-studded casts with some of the best actors within their respective countries. The Hong Kong film stars Tony Leung, often billed as China's answer to Clark Gable, and Andy Lau, an insanely popular movie and pop music star. Infernal Affairs is highly recommendable as it is a complex tale of honor and brotherhood with themes of identity at its core. The soul of the film is Tony Leung, with his conflicted undercover cop, who does things he despises as the right hand man to a Triad boss to keep up appearances as a gangster. Leung is an amazing actor that has been in so many brilliant films that it would be hard to name them all here. 

 

The Departed lifts the story from Infernal Affairs and sets the action in South Boston with Leonardo DiCaprio playing the undercover cop, Billy Costigan, as the right hand man to Jack Nicholson's frightening Irish mob boss, Frank Costello. There is so much talent in this film with Martin Sheen as a Police Captain, Mark Wahlberg as a ball-busting Staff Sergeant, Alec Baldwin as another Police Captain and Matt Damon as the mole in the Police force, Colin Sullivan. Damon's character appears to be a sort of golden boy, rising through the ranks while using information he learns there to warn Costello of the Police investigations against him and his people, often while in the middle of pretending to head up stings against the very same mob. The film's running time is an hour over Infernal Affairs and doesn't feel at all bloated or overlong as the film moves at a brisk pace with action, suspense, strong violence and witty, often hilarious, dialogue. Many of the added scenes are expanded dialogue that are full of strong characterization, offering insights to the players' motivations and personalities. Also, the tone is changed slightly and with a strong soundtrack of rock music hand-picked by The Band's Robbie Robertson that makes the film feel more fun than its Hong Kong predecessor. 

 

The filmmakers use of sound is highlighted with a complex communication system for the two moles involving cellphones. The editing and dialogue is punchy and quick, creating a constant forward movement in the plot as well as a feeling of density in the story. The film reveals more of itself on repeat viewings as you begin to understand the slang and catch references you may have missed before. Scorsese has a knack for mafia films, creating worlds inhabited by gangsters, toughs and other social outcasts. This film continues his usual themes of crime, masculinity and violence to create something beautiful out of parts so ugly. DiCaprio plays such a convincing role as a rattled undercover cop that you can feel his distress of being found out. His fears and anxieties would be what yours would be if you had to protect your identity at every turn. He starts to really unravel towards the end and it seems like his sanity is probably hanging onto a thread while desperation is taking hold. There are so many great scenes with DiCaprio in what is probably his best role. You can see he is running on all cylinders and I believe it to be a tour de force as far as his acting ability goes. 

 

It seems fitting to discuss this film now due to the arrest of real-life Irish mob boss from South Boston, James “Whitey” Bulger, who was finally caught by the Police this year after evading the authorities and being on the lam since 1995. The character of Jack Nicholson's Frank Costigan is based on “Whitey” and Matt Damon's mole in the force was based on John Connolly, an FBI agent who tipped Bulger off regularly for years. It is strange to see a film by Scorsese with so many real world ties that also happens to be based on another film, but somehow he makes it his own and the film feels like it can stand next to many of his masterpieces. This is his first Oscar win for Best Director and Best Picture, but he also deserved to win for Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. There was a lot of talk of Scorsese having to win the award in 2006 because he was slighted in the past but he may have deserved the award for this film anyway. Along with Best Director and Best Picture, The Departed won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing by Scorsese's longtime editor and collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker (her third win; the others being for Raging Bull and The Aviator.) The Departed is one of the best films of the year and comes with highest recommendations. It's exciting, tense, funny, smart and highly cinematic in presentation. Of the five nominees, the Academy made the right choice. 

 

Rating: 9/10

-Ryan Sallows

Next time: The real meat of our blog begins as we dissect and analyze great films that weren't nominated for Best Picture but could have been and maybe even should have been. Maybe there was a film that was even better that The Departed. We will find out. First up is a review of award-winning drama, Half Nelson, directed by Ryan Fleck.