Back in 2006, I was starting to become more interested in movies but in a more different way as I look at more as to how certain movies tend to be made. I know, in 2004, it was the first time that I watched every Best Picture nominee, maybe, I was too young to watch Sideways at the time. Anyway, this movie was the talk of the town amongst people who have seen it or from critics who have seen it in earlier screenings. When I was at that age at the time, I knew it had some of the most talented actors was in the ensemble such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg amongst others. However, I never realized, at the time, it was directed by Martin Scorsese.
Look, I was a young lad but Scorsese, again, is one of the true pioneers of cinema and may be one of the last filmmakers left who devotes himself to a passion of film itself in terms of making the movie and restoring older and classic movies. But, also, gangster movies were sort of inconsistent in terms of gritty and violent gangster films like Casino or Donnie Brasco in the mid to late 90s and some quiet and beautiful gangster films like Road to Perdition and City of God. But, no offense to those movies, even though City of God was excellent, The Departed is one of those movies that returned to form for Martin Scorsese after a couple of sub-par movies like Kundun and Bringing Out the Dead or very good movies like Gangs of New York or a great biopic like The Aviator. But, he was back to that traditional, gritty gangster genre.
Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), an Irish-American mobster in South Boston, introduces a young Colin as a child to organized crime as he sees him in a deli as he does business with a cashier. Over the years, Colin (Matt Damon) grows up to graduate as a cop and becomes a mole into the Massachusetts State Police and then becomes accepted into the Special Investigations Unit, which focuses on cases regarding organized crime. Another person who was in the police academy is Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is recruited by Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), to go undercover because he has family ties into organized crime.
After getting out of prison because of a fake assault charge, Billy meets Mr. French (Ray Winstone), Costello's main henchman, at a bar after he knocks out a person with a shot glass after insulting Billy and French warns him that he will get hurt if he makes another cocaine deal with his "idiot cousin" even if his grandmother is nice to French. Each man is infiltrating his respective organization, as Colin is in the SIU and Billy is now in Costello's gang as he meets Costello later to see if Costello trusts him because he knows Billy's uncle, Jackie and his father were in the criminal world.
Another story involves Madolyn Madden (Vera Famiga), a police psychiatrist, in which Colin commences a romantic relationship and then later on, she moves into his apartment. Also, Billy is seeing her under the terms of his probation as he delves deeper into how he feels regarding life and how policemen feel using their weapons. However, he also starts a relationship with Madolyn. After a sting operation, each mole has become aware of each other's existence as Billy finds out about a "rat" in the unit and Colin finds out from Costello that there is a "rat" in his gang. It becomes a little bit of a cat-and-mouse game except that it is not going to end well.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Obviously, this is a great movie as it tackles both the gritty violence and tantalizing suspense in both the frenetic pacing and some quiet, wordless moments such as the moment in which after Queenan dies because Colin tails him because he knew he was going to meet with the "rat" from his point of view as he was really going to meet with Billy, Colin calls Billy via Queenan's phone and they just hear each other's breath for a minute and it earns that moment of chilling suspense. But, also another scene of suspense is a long restaurant scene between Billy and Costello in which Billy gets scared whether or not Costello knows that Billy is a rat and it is tense after he left the gang's hangout after submitting his name and social security number and he was told to stay put. But, it is also scary because Nicholson improvised that scene and DiCaprio did not know what is going to happen between them. It is a great tense scene.
This movie tackles a lot of themes but I'll name some important ones. Each of the three main characters in this movie have this theme of ambition. Billy wants to help with the Boston Police Department because he gets flak for his family's criminal lifestyle. And based on Queenan's demands, he will not be a cop because of that lifestyle, however, it is his chance to redeem himself and also his family's name. Colin wants to rise through the Massachusetts Police and become the best cop while being an informant for Costello. And, Frank Costello wants to be the best mob boss lord. Scorsese tackles the same issues that he did in Goodfellas that because somebody wants to be the best in their profession, it is their American Dream. He tackles that Dream well again in which he provides the criminal world in America being most of the characters' apex. It is scum but it their apex.
Speaking of Billy's ambition to become a cop and settling for being a snitch, he wants to redeem his family's name so it also tackles the theme of family as he and Costello sort of has a personal familial relationship because Costello treats him more than a son than Colin because Billy is familiar with this world. Even though they had a family-son dynamic, Costello raised Colin sort of as his son because he is smart and also can provide him information but it fades away as noticed in some later phone conversations, especially the last one, since he had enough of Costello's flak. But, also, what is common, and one of which is a theory, Costello has the inability to conceive children because he even though he sleeps with many women, Colin explicitly insults him which triggers Costello to attempt to kill Colin but Colin kills his father figure. But, also the theory is that there is a brief moment in the movie that Colin is eating breakfast and Madolyn wants to discuss about what happened last night in a more vague way.
Now, stay with me. We do not witness Madolyn and Colin in a love scene, only one scene where they are talking in bed about life outside of Boston but we do witness Madolyn and Billy talking about her stage in life in which she has to make a decision to move on to her next stage and Billy's invulnerability and then they make love. Time does pass by because the case takes long to process and Billy loses it even more when he sees Costello coming out of the back room in another bar with blood on his hands because he knows that Costello is close to killing him. But, we see, towards the end of the movie, Madolyn has a sonograph photo of the baby to show to Colin after Billy drops off a package to give to her and if anything happens to him or have two weeks pass by, she can open the package. It is implied that it leaked information. Now, figure out who actually is the baby's father based on my theory.
But, also, there are symbols and homages to the criminal world. It sort of ties into Shakespeare's Hamlet. If you notice an X in each moment or preceding moment before the impact of a character's death, that character will meet his fate. It is a foreshadowing device that you will notice after watching the movie like two to five times. You will notice with DiCaprio in the elevator, on the windows as Sheen is falling to his death and on the ground outside of his apartment, as Damon meets his demise with Wahlberg killing him in his apartment.
The cast is fantastic across the board as this was one of DiCaprio's best and also more mature performances as he goes deep into his character as an isolated informant as his only contact is Madolyn not as a member of Costello's gang or an informant for the Boston Police Department but as a human being. Damon embodies the hard-working, innocent cop but underneath is scum that he learned from Costello. Nicholson is fantastic as the mob boss and it was fascinating that he and Scorsese have not worked together. And, Mark Wahlberg, in a small supporting role, is mean and tough as he deals with things his own way and speaks his own mind. Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone, Martin Sheen, Anthony Anderson, James Badge Dale and Vera Farmiga are all solid in their roles.
Again, Martin Scorsese has made one of the most modern and recent American crime classics in the past decade. It is an authentic and well-directed film that questions morality, guilt, deception and also the themes of ambition within the American Dream in both the cop and criminal world. But, aside from the sensational violence in and outside the streets of Boston to the excellent editing by Thelma Schoonmaker to William Monahan's adapted screenplay, which is based on a Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs, it is a flawless crime movie. In my opinion, this is one of Scorsese's very best movies. It is very interesting that he has a classic in each decade: Taxi Driver in the '70s, Raging Bull in the '80s, Goodfellas in the '90s and now, I think you can make the case: The Departed in the 2000s. Right now, Hugo or The Wolf of Wall Street is the prime film of the 2010s. They are both battling for it.
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