The Departed
Good lord this movie was confusing to follow. One of those that makes your brain work for it.
The Departed is a Crime/Drama released in 2006 about two undercover cops. One is Colin Sullivan, who’s undercover for his gang’s boss, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), infiltrating the police department. The other, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), a struggling trooper not respected in the department because of his upbringing, who is infiltrating Sullivan’s gang. I’ll try to keep this plot summary in layman's terms since if you’ve read the title of my website, it’s amateur movie reviews, not expert movie reviews. The fun of the movie begins when each of their real and fake bosses figure out there’s a mole in their respective units. Colin Sullivan (the first mole) is a hotshot fake police officer who really isn’t a fake police officer. Frank Costello (the gang chief) groomed him to become a police officer since he was a kid so he could be his inside man to report what the police were doing against him. Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Billy Costigan becomes antsy after he’s given the job of infiltrating the gang, assigned by his bosses Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg).
I don’t want to spoil or give any more of the plot out but I can tell you that with five A-list actors and Martin Scorsese directing, this movie was bound to impress among the public, and it did, pulling in almost 300 million dollars at the box office.
The Pros
God, there’s so many…
First off, the acting is amazing. LITERALLY EVERYONE was so good: Damon, Alec Baldwin, DiCaprio, Nicholson, and Wahlberg all absolutely smashed expectations. I think personally Damon’s performance stood out the most with DiCaprio trailing not far behind. Wahlberg is also not far behind DiCaprio.
I’ll give one thing for each of them that I loved in their acting performance. For Damon, I think it was just the whole package. I liked how his character Colin played both sides in such a slick and calm way really giving off that professional vibe. For Leonardo DiCaprio, I mean come on, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio. His dedication to any role he’s playing in a film is just impeccable. But for The Departed, my favorite thing was what I alluded to earlier, the experience of watching Billy become more and more on edge as each minute passed. For Mark Wahlberg, Dignam’s outbursts were so entertaining to watch. They kept the style in check for what I think Scorsese wanted it to look like–A high stakes drama with so many twists and turns keeping audiences unsure of what could come next.
Picking up off of that, I really liked the style of this movie. There was never a dull moment and I think that’s something that slips away from directors and producers somewhat often. I think any movie that just keeps moving and moving is going to be exponentially less likely to lose people’s attention. All the scenes between the Irish gang and their atrocities against the police department plus their struggle to build a case on Costello balanced so well and provided a beautiful gory story in full picture.
The building scene was one of the big pros to this movie. I can’t get entirely into it because I’d spoil the plot in it and also the fact that I don’t know it like the back of my hand or anything. Every great movie has that one scene that sticks out and this one is definitely that scene. It has all the crazy plot twists and turns that ties your brain in a knot since it moves so damn fast. This is where everything also starts to get settled, unpacking new things about the story kept away from the viewer to build suspense.
The Cons
This is quite a bit easier to write than The Pros. Not just because I know what I like and what I don’t, but because I think most people who watch this feel the same way.
What I believe to be the obvious critique is the confusing story. I slightly hinted at it being confusing up there in the building scene, but it wasn’t just that scene. I realize that it’s going to be hard no matter what to follow a story that has two moles, infiltrating opposite positions, but still, it was a lot harder than it needed to be. It’s one of those movies that has you squinting for a good 30 minutes just trying to follow the basics, and I think that’s where the story designers Alan Mak and Felix Chong, and screenplay writer William Monahan missed the mark. I’ll gladly admit to not understanding a lot of this story and if I’m the only person out there who feels this way, then so be it.
I did not like Madolyn as a character. Plain and simple she just wasn’t essential to the story. I don’t see how she did anything that fundamentally changed the trajectory of the plot. She is Billy’s hookup midway through the movie and Colin’s girlfriend, but she isn’t involved in any of the nasty stuff that is actually important. I just don’t see the point. Feel free to blast me in the comments and I’ll take this critique down, but until then, I’m dying on this hill.
Despite providing me with a lot of stress during some parts of this movie trying to comprehend, I really enjoyed this one a lot. The Score is a 90.
