“When I was growing up, they would say you could become cops or criminals. But what I’m saying is this. When you’re faced with a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”
I’ve often considered Martin Scorsese one of the greatest film directors of all time as he manages to portray the gritty side of realism to the point where it makes me believe that the world is just one big Scorsese film. Very few directors are able to show realism in a film and still make it as compelling as one that is as far away from reality, The Departed is the perfect example of how Scorsese’s genius manages to take a mainstream film and turn into a classy independent film. Admittedly I have only recently seen this film as the idea had initially felt overdone and so typical of the gangster genre’s cliches, but I was greatly mistaken.
The first thing to point out about the story is that it manages to take two different stories about two different characters and still manage to keep the overall plot consistent between the two, I feel it’s quite unique in that aspect as most films with a multi-story narrative only really connect in the last half hour of a film. The story starts with a young boy named Colin Sullivan who lives a rather normal suburban life, that is until a boss of an organised crime unit named Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) who see’s potential in the boy, we then see time pass as the boy is mentored by Costello which is all explained to us through narration and montage; basically what you’d expect from a Scorsese film. As we see Sullivan grown into a man (Matt Damon), we see him training to join the police all for the sake of keeping Costello safe from the watching eye of the cops. We also see anouther police trainee; Billy (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is trying to genuinely join the police, while Sullivan is successful in joining and fooling the police into believing his ambitions are genuine, Billy isn’t so lucky but is instead given the chance to become an undercover cop by infiltrating Costello’s business. This is where the film displays a dilemma as we have two people posing under their enemy’s base of operation.
All throughout we are shown the hardships the two characters have to deal with to keep up their images, they encounter hurdles such as both of them falling into relationships, Damon’s character even having to lie to his girlfriend who is also part of the police force and still providing information for Costello, DiCaprio’s character get’s put through a lot of emotional turmoil, a man who is so put off with the idea of murder or any kind of crime has to watch Costello mercilessly abuse and even kill men, and he is unable to do anything even with two police chiefs (played by Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg). While I find this story incredibly compelling I do feel that it falls a bit too much into Scorsese’s overused cookbook of cliches; you have the antagonistic main characters, the glorification of organised crime, characters that go a little too much into parodies of these character archetypes rather than the archetypes themselves. Despite this I can believe in the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” motto and the formula does work perfectly here, I found myself hooked on every moment, as the scenes got more intense I could feel more tense, but it did feel like I had seen this before in other films like Goodfellas or Casino.
The acting is absolutely sublime, DiCaprio and Damon do great jobs at portraying a tortured good guy and a criminal abusing his position of fake cop respectively, these are two very great actors who have already built up a reputation at this point and I expect no less. Jack Nicholson is also perfect in his role as Costello, Nicholson has a knack for playing psychopathic characters with off the wall mannerisms and it completely shows here, he really is the highlight of the whole film. We also see the main characters trying to maintain relationships and both supporting females feel like strong characters, DiCaprio dates his former Psychiatrist and Damon is dating a real cop, these two manage to keep the main characters under control despite their lack of screen time. The two final characters to talk about are Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg’s characters, I have an issue with both these characters, Sheen feels like nothing more than a way of trying to get us to respect the character only to feel sad and frustrated at the eventual fall of the character, if it weren’t for the events that occurred I would be more compelled to appreciate the character but I fail to see him as anything more than a cheap plot device, Wahlberg is also pretty typical, he plays the asshole boss who can’t put up with the main character, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, bar one final moment Wahlberg is pretty one dimensional.
One thing I failed to comment on in my first review was the editing mainly because The Blues Brothers doesn’t exactly stand out in that department but because The Departed is a Scorsese film it is most definitely appropriate here. It should always be expected that when Scorsese is making a film the editing will be very ‘artsy’ and this is no exception, the editing is very well paced and some scenes can be outstanding, the scene where Costello is throwing cocaine on a hooker stands out for instance, the scene is very slow as it utilises slow-motion, a strange scene that was made a lot more epic if it had not been edited as well as it was. The editor also knows when to make a scene more emotional, each moment where a character is stuck in a tense state or is suffering some kind of turmoil, the editing will be limited to the more subtle sounds that are occurring in the scene such as the sound of a phone being answered or the breathing of the characters.
Overall I feel that The Departed is Scorsese’s best, it is quite a bold statement to make and it is difficult to choose, but I find myself compelled to re-visit this film the most, even if I don’t agree with everything in the film it does go far beyond what I could’ve expected from a crime film, the ending stands out as it really does come as a shock and only adds to how highly I view this film. I know people may be more compelled to say Casino or Taxi Driver is Scorsese’s best but this will forever be mine.
Side Note: terrible Boston accents AHOY!!
Written Review By C. Johnson