The Departed

The Departed is a tightly scripted and impressively acted film from Martin Scorsese. Here he is back at the top of his form expertly delivering a tight, tense, and surprisingly funny film. Though the material is heavy and the actors all multiple award nominees the film doesn’t plod or take itself too seriously. It moves deftly, has a light touch, and has fun with its topsy-turvy stereotyping. Yes the film was violent which is not unexpected in a Martin Scorsese film especially in one about mobsters and cops, but it is a sort of squib bullet to the head violence that foregoes the buildup and the big splatter and acts in a more uniform businesslike way. The biggest surprise is that the film is exceptionally funny as well.

The only problem with the film is the title. The Departed is uninteresting and unmemorable and does not evoke the right kind of idea for this film. After seeing the movie I now understand the title a little better; yet I still don’t think that it was a good title for the film. It doesn’t bring any kind of idea of story or character to mind. But that is the only disappointing point of an otherwise fabulous film. The Departed is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, a much more clever and illustrative title.

The Departed stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon as opposing spies playing a cat and mouse game between the Boston State Police and the Boston Irish Mafia. DiCaprio is Billy Costigan a straight A student from a family of screw ups who is sent back to the Boston neighborhood he avoided to infiltrate the mob. The mob is headed by Frank Costello played as a dirty crazy masochist by Jack Nicholson who delivers one of his signature performances. Matt Damon is Colin Sullivan a high flying state policeman who has been in Costello’s pocket since he was a boy. Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen finish out the major cast as Costigan’s handlers Dignam and Captain Queenan.

Since when did Alec Baldwin become a comic master? Every time he appeared onscreen the audience’s smirks and chuckles began and he got the best line in the film ‘I love the Patriot Act’ when the mobsters phones are bugged. He is appearing in more and more things including 30 Rock and he gives a less over the top sort of over the top that is hard to properly define and far less campy than his closest compatriot William Shatner. Somehow Baldwin has transcended his own less than illustrious past and some of the material he has chosen to become one of those actors whose mere presence on screen lightens the mood of a film. He has morphed from a B-list leading man to an A-list character actor and his career is much richer for it.

The stellar cast is firing on all cylinders on this film. DiCaprio is all at once slimy and noble and violent and even vulnerable. In a repeat outing with Scorsese he shows all of the emotion and inner demons that he lacked for so long and finally discovered in The Aviator. Damon is smarmy and slick as the dirty cop who has everything and then must fight to keep it. One can only imagine that the most difficult part for him was maintaining just the right class of Boston accent. Even Martin Sheen is endearing as a fatherly police chief who deals with DiCaprio’s mole. And there isn’t a way to describe Wahlberg’s efficient and blatant hostility to everyone and everything that moves. Jack Nicholson is of course Jack Nicholson here a little grimier than usual but still witty and cruel and unpredictable in a way that only Jack can be.

The film foregoes some of the obvious plot twists though of course both the cop pretending to be in the mob and the mobster pretending to be a cop are in love with the same shrink. Otherwise there are a number of impressive twists and a few which leave the audience scratching their heads thinking, well that was kind of a dumb thing to do. Either way the important thing is that these characters warrant concern with whether they are making good or stupid decisions which is more than most movies offer.

There is certainly a lot of gritty dialogue and violence as would be expected from a film of this genre. The story is interesting and Scorsese keeps the pace brisk. Though The Departed takes some questionable turns towards the end it is overall a very satisfying film. Scorsese and his all star cast a taut thrilling ride in The Departed.