In the grand tradition of Martin Scorsese films, the movie “The Departed” is saturated with violence, a specific cultural vernacular, and of course, almost stretches out to the three-hour mark.
Despite the fact that I am not Scorsese’s target audience, I did not mind the aforementioned characteristics of the film. In fact, I think all of these things are essential to the film’s success. Scorsese accomplishes so much with this film. He has managed to obtain superb cinematography from Michael Ballhaus and also a screenplay, that pairs brash dialogue with an intriguing story line that keeps the audience going back and forth, quite like watching a tennis match.
Along with all of this you have Scorsese himself, a celebrated director. However, you cannot forget to mention the backbone of the film, the elite cast of actors who breathe life to this screenplay and do a wonderful job of keeping the audience engaged.
In the vein of Scorsese’s film, “Goodfellas”, “The Departed” dives deep into the core of the mafia, but to counteract this we are privy to the inner workings of the police department. Essentially this film takes place in the economically divided Boston where the southern part of town harbors the Irish mafia, including their leader Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Here the kingpin Costello has reigned for years, killing and bullying anyone he can to maintain his power.
Along the way he meets a young Collin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and grooms him into a trustworthy confidant. When Sullivan finishes up his training at the Boston Police Academy, he is poised to be Costello’s key informant in the force. Sullivan’s good-boy appearance enables him to rise up in the ranks and gain more access to aid Costello.
However, Billy Costigan played by Leonardo DiCaprio has been assigned to infiltrate the mob by his superiors at the police department, Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). Unfortunately for both sides, the respective undercover cop and the mafia informant are found out and a slew of violence and mind games ensue.
This leads to intense scenes of confrontation and bouts of mental breakdowns for the characters, especially Costigan and Sullivan. How long will they last before one of them cracks?
Every aspect of this film has it together. I’ve already mentioned the greatness achieved by the script and the cinematography, but it goes much deeper than that. This film has many layers. A class struggle presented by South Boston and the more affluent North Boston is personified through the characters themselves, the police and the south town mobsters.
Also, the cinematography presents to the audience a dingy representation of the poorer section of town and a clean, brightly lit picture of the commercial section of the city. There is also identity confusion that incorporates this class struggle and also adds depth to the plot. I could go on, but I’ll refrain. Just know that the longer I thought about the film, the more there was to discover.
It is highly possible that I will be mocked for this, but it is in my opinion that Leonardo DiCaprio executed his role quite well. He was dodgy, he made me nervous, he acted out of his mind, but some how maintained control.
No longer are we presented with whatever misconceptions of DiCaprio you had from his past films, he worked this role. Nicholson is a standout as usual and infuses humor in an otherwise dramatic movie.
With Damon’s all-American looks I was not sure he could pull off being one of the bad guys, but he did just that. Normally you would not look at Damon and think smarmy; however, he accomplished that in this film. There were notable performances from Sheen and Wahlberg as well.
There is no doubt that this movie will receive not only Oscar buzz, but nominations as well. That is what Scorsese does best right? I enjoyed this film very much. However, I must warn you that if you are highly offended by hearing the f-word every other sentence and feel queasy at the smallest amount of blood, than this film is not for you. This film is rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, some strong sexual content, and drug material and can be viewed at Carmike 14 Cinemas.

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