The Departed

Every so often, a film comes along that is so stunning and so ridiculously good that it’s hard to review it without sounding like a gushing fool. For a “classic over-rater” such as myself, that becomes increasingly hard to do when it appears that I can pass out “A-ratings” like candy. Without blowing my cover, there are some “A-ratings” that really deserve to stand out and others that merely represent expertise in a particular field. This is the former.

The Departed is a scorcher of a film from beginning to end, a film that blisters the screen with its intricate plot, tremendous acting, and ingenious play of music with on-screen action. The film comes to us from, naturally, Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Raging Bull) and assembles a terrific cast to lay out a crime thriller, serving as a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs. Infernal Affairs was seen as a revival of Hong Kong cinema at the time, not only because of its star-studded cast – including Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Eric Tsang, and Sammi Cheng – but because of its plot of undercover agents working both sides and the swift and compact storytelling employed by directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak.

As the story goes, Miramax Films grabbed the United States distribution rights to Infernal Affairs and gave it a limited release in 2004. Scorsese then picked it up and The Departed was born. The film is set to a backdrop of Boston, beginning in 1975 in South Boston and pushing through the 80s and up to present day. The story mainly follows Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), the head of the Irish mob in Boston, and events swirling around him. Costello takes a young Colin Sullivan under his wing and prepares him to be a mole for his crew. As years pass, Sullivan (Matt Damon) grows up and trains for the police department. Costello has his man on the inside. Meanwhile, William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a trooper being assigned as an undercover to Costello’s crew because of his family ties.

Costigan’s handlers (Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg) put him in deep with Costello’s crew to keep an eye on things. Meanwhile, Sullivan is making his way up the ranks of the Massachusetts PD and is soon promoted to the Special Investigation Unit, headed by Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin). Costigan works his way into Costello’s crew at the same time that Sullivan works his way up the ranks with the police. Costigan is paired with one of Costello’s right hand guys (Ray Winstone) and experiences several violent ordeals. Sullivan becomes romantically involved with a criminal psychiatrist (Vera Farmiga), who is also having sessions with Costigan. Things continue to spiral out of control as Sullivan constantly works from the inside to try to keep Costello out of trouble, while Costigan works from the inside to try to bring the big Irish boss down.

The tension increases when Costello learns of an rat in his organization and, of course, the police department soon discovers that there must be a rat in the PD. Costello wants to find the mole, so he requires each member of his crew to fill out paperwork and stuffs it into an envelope. Costigan knows the envelope will end up in the hands of whoever the inside informant is with the police, so he follows Costello one night to a darkened theater to try and catch a glimpse of the mole. A chase ensues, but Costigan loses the mole, Sullivan, in a dark alley. Things begin to go from bad to worse as sequence after sequence pushes both moles closer together and pulls new, shocking information to light about the true nature of Costello and other members of this incredible storyline.

The Departed works on so many levels, but the primary area of interest is the incredible story and the countless twists and turns it takes. Scorsese, through his expert direction, allows everything to unfold at such an organic pace that it feels immense as the roof comes off this whole operation. The story’s deep entrenchment into Boston, the use of the Massachusetts State House as a symbol of Sullivan’s ambition, the basing of Nicholson’s Costello on real-life Irish mob boss Whitey Bulger, and the basing of Damon’s Sullivan on real-life FBI agent John Connolly helps lay a foundation for the story that is deeply based on roots of culture and reality. It adds a nice touch and enhances the original Infernal Affairs storyline.

The Departed also works wonders with thematic elements to add more to the structure of the story. One of the key themes in the film is one of the oldest in the book, the issue of identity. Each character is roughly defined by their history, what they do, and what they will do by Scorsese’s merciless camera. As the film draws to a close, real motivations are laid out on the table and some identities that we thought we were sure of the entire time are stripped away. Real motivations and real characters are what remains, making The Departed soar above an average crime thriller due to the intense ability of DiCaprio, Damon, Wahlberg, Sheen, and Nicholson to bring those elements out in their respective characters. What remains is a wonderful human drama about the true nature of characters, with each playing roles that are meticulously designed to cover some very basic human elements – such as father/son relationships – and to add an eerie edge to those natural parts of personality.

The Departed is also, like many other Scorsese masterpieces, guided by music. The use of the Rolling Stones and of the Dropkick Murphys draws the plot closer together still, driving the action without interfering and serving as a soundtrack to the rising tension. Howard Shore score is also brilliant, as the expert composer utilizes tone effectively throughout the film to show us new sides to the backdrop without the atypical paint-by-numbers effect of many film scores.

Scorsese’s film is something that requires time, as many of the basic plot elements are twisting and turning continuously throughout the film as the characters evolve and become other people while still staying relatively the same. It’s a classic criminal caper, on par with the best ever made, and contains so much edge and so much heart that it’s almost hard to stand how great the film is. The Departed is a film that scores on every level and packs a wallop. It’s a true “edge of your seat” thriller, but it’s also so much more than that. One of the best films of 2006, by far, and one of Scorsese’s true masterworks. Awe-inspiring, shocking, classic.

Trailer: