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Directed By
Martin Scorsese
Written By:
William Monahan
Cast:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alec Baldwin, Gerard McSorley, David O'Hara, Kristen Dalton, James Badge Dale
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The Departed (2006)
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Movie Review by Bobby B
February 28th, 2008
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Dangerous Games
In the opening shot of The Departed Jack Nicholson walks through the dark fabric of our minds. He is here because we know him, because he's been a star for forty years, because the career of Jack Nicholson is a cultural map of America in the last half of the 20th Century to now, because he is a living symbol of what we have become. Martin Scorsese's casting here is short hand. The audience -- all of us -- has a relationship with Jack Nicholson. We know him as a star, as an often brilliant artist in our defining art form, as a hedonist, as a mirror of who we want to be, of who we are afraid that we have become. In that first shot then, we understand on a visceral level all we need to understand about Nicholson's character, Frank Costello. And Nicholson's persona sets the tone for the rest of the movie.
From the beginning The Departed feels lighter than Scorsese's other forays into the gangster world: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino or Mean Streets. In those movies he was telling the Truth. In The Departed a master craftsman is plying his trade and having a great time doing it. It's a more deliberate energy, a more active storytelling as opposed to watching lives unfold. The plot concerns an undercover cop infiltrating a mob and an undercover gangster who infiltrates the police. They each find out that the other one exists but don't know who they are, respectively. The rest of the movie is the two men trying to discover who the other one is while avoiding being discovered themselves, trying to know themselves AND helping the parties they're each working for achieve what they need to achieve. It's a lot of plot to keep in the air for two and a half hours and it's the reason Scorsese resorts to short hand.
The film clips along at a near-manic pace just barely maintaining control. We follow Matt Damon's undercover criminal and Leonardo DiCaprio's undercover cop as they each come up through their respective ranks and are put in position to do their jobs. When all the pieces are finally in place it feels like you've reached the top of the roller coaster -- and are about to take the plunge. The plunge is exhilarating, the achievement of a crackerjack film maker, a guy who knows what he's doing. The tension builds in well timed bursts of discovery and violence. Cell phones become an active and terrifying character in the movie. It's hard to take any of it seriously and just as difficult not to have a blast while watching it.
DiCaprio does his best work in years. As undercover cop Billy Costigan, DiCaprio's desperation is constant, raw, nearly animal. He starts out as a lonely man trying to find his place in the world and his alienation becomes more complete as the movie continues. DiCaprio's special gift is to make his emotions come through his skin and here that talent is put to devastating use.
Matt Damon has been one of our best young stars for years now. His work is always clear, direct, economical and his Detective Colin Sullivan is no exception. He is a man who likes to be in control and is used to exercising that control through deception. When a threat to the fabric of his deception is posed he begins to lose it. It is at these moments, when the walls of lies they have erected are beginning to tumble down around them, that DiCaprio and Damon shine the brightest.
There are others: Alec Baldwin does his usual sterling work. Ray Winstone and Martin Sheen are both old pros who are never less than solid. Mark Wahlberg is excellent in a part that obviously speaks to him. Vera Farmiga does not fare so well. As the psychiatrist who marries Det. Sullivan and falls in love with Billy Costigan she feels weak, unsteady. The character doesn't make any sense as written or played. She's not strong enough or smart enough to exist in this movie filled with smart, angry men putting their lives on the line. What Nicholson does here isn't exactly acting. It's Nicholson playing Nicholson, being a star. And it's still pretty interesting.
The film almost falls apart at the end when everybody starts killing everybody. It feels like the screen-writer, William Monahan, after being on fire for the first four fifths of the movie, ran out of ink so he just wrote "and everybody dies." It's too bad. The rest of the movie has been so smart, so thrilling, you want the end to be the same. That it's not doesn't derail everything that's been achieved so far but it does diminish it.
In Scorsese's movies he makes apparent the threads that weave us together in the tapestry of twenty-first century America. And once woven in we find ourselves trapped, enthralled. In The Departed the threads of the web are deceit and mystery, a search for identity, a longing for belonging, the meaning of truth and the definition of honor. And somehow, Scorsese manages to weave in a lot fun as well.
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 | Zara
Feb 29, 2008 12:35 AM
also wrote a review of The Departed 
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I will say this: Mark Wahlberg was my favorite character in the film. Because there is no question of who he is, even to the very end, and not only is the character truest to himself, Wahlberg is just as true to the character. It was nice to see him snag a Best Supporting nod. He can be spotty at best as an actor, but as a kid who grew up on the streets of Boston, breaking the law and coming into contact with cops in his youth, this was someone that he may have started out hating, but learned to understand. For that, he has my deepest respect (in finding the respect that he needed for those men in blue).
Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone... these are always going to be great actors. They've honed themselves to a perfection level that is unparalleled. Most of all, it is Baldwin who impresses me most, because his grasp on both drama AND comedy vastly exceeds the other men.
I don't think that Scorsese casts so well as he has his choice of whomever he wants, since he is an established name in Hollywood and ANYONE is chomping at the bit to work with him. So I give Scorsese nada in the direction of casting. Kinda hard to spell wrong when you have the entire alphabet to play with.
Vera Farmiga was a really bad character for me to stomach. I understand that there are "unclean" professionals, but after watching her play such a strong, determined and unrelenting character in RUNNING SCARED (making the movie vastly more respectable just for her portion of it), it was almost painful to watch her go through the motions.
Which is what Scorsese wants from his female actresses. Again and again I watch Scorsese flicks, hoping against hope that he will allow a female character to be something other than a plot toy, a breathing prop. (When you read my interview with Cricket Leigh, you'll hear it from the actresses' perspective: being in a film makes you the prop of the director's vision, so I blame the director for steering a performance/character off course, if it even was given one in the first place.) But I am always disappointed that there are still just as many female stars willing to line up to work with him, even though he has proven that he just doesn't allow the women in his films to shine. (I always will point out that I feel like one of the only people who liked BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, which being a Scorsese flick, I wasn't expecting to. But having a friend who worked as an ambulance driver gave me inside perspective and I think that S |
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Feb 29, 2008 12:42 AM
And much like you said, this was Jack being Jack here. Which, frankly, is very unimpressive to me. The earlier Jack I liked because he was a c*cky bastard. But a c*cky bastard who continues to be one without growth - no matter the bulk of his reputation - is just a bastard.
I know you didn't like AS GOOD AS IT GETS, but that was the last time that Jack impressed me. Actually attempting to show some of his soft underbelly. The scene between him and Greg Kinnear, at the end, after seeing all those characters go through together, telling him that if it did it for him, he'd be a lucky guy.... I really liked that part of Jack.
The Jack here, however, almost made me lose my popcorn.
How's that for a long comment for ya?
Feb 29, 2008 6:06 PM
Feb 29, 2008 9:31 PM
Mar 1, 2008 1:04 AM
Mar 1, 2008 11:54 PM
Mar 6, 2008 4:09 PM
I can't argue with you on Jack. Either you dug it or you didn't and when I think about what he's capable of I'm thinking now you're right and it might've been a interesting to see a little more of him. Oh well.
I'm glad you didn't quite lose your popcorn. An under-medicated Zara, spewing her popcorn is a disturbing thought indeed.
Mar 6, 2008 7:38 PM
Mar 6, 2008 7:42 PM