The Departed
June 1st, 2007 by park
I saw the previews for The Departed some time back. I should have paid more attention, but honestly I just haven’t cared much lately. Faith in my movie going experience being lax as it is, at this point I feel I should just rent a porno and a Lifetime original film and watch them back-to-back, usually gives me the same effect, a hard-on with a lot of remorse.
But then I saw The Departed. Granted, it was last year’s film. But I just watched it again and was completely blown away. Now here’s the thing, it’s directed by Martin Scorsese. That in itself says many things. First, it’s gonna be longer than most people’s films within the genre. Secondly, it’s going to go by fast, so you have to keep up.
Scorsese has a tendency to have multiple layers of character development, including multiple cathartic moments for story arc. Not to mention there’s almost always a nearly Byzantine amount of backstabbing and maneuvering going on. This can happen even within a single character’s personality.
His directing style is big, and usually grim and gritty. When you see blood, it’s for a purpose. But there’s always blood it seems. Sometimes he can be shocking, and sometimes he can be brilliantly delicate. But he’s always amazing.
Now aside from an amazing director you need talented writing. And in this case it was William Monahan. Which I cannot recall seeing around much until now, but was not impressed all too much on his first big shot film. Before this, according to IMDB anyway, he wrote Kingdom of Heaven. In that case his bad guys were two-dimensional stooges and his hero was pretty much an idiot. I hated it in the worst possible way. But with The Departed, he’s managed to redeem himself in a big way.
Monahan’s character developments are rich and very twisted up with one another. Some of it is a bit trite, but we expect a bit of that no matter how hard we try. Considering his last attempt, this is a veritable jewel. And with Scorsese at the helm, it was a masterful cut.
Here’s the story breakdown. It’s set in Boston, MA, as two young police cadets are leaving their training to join the force. One, Colin (played by Matt Damon), is a paragon of police training and skills. The other, Billy (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), is a kid trying to outrun his family’s past of underground involvement.
As Colin joins the troopers of Massachusetts State Police, he is given the silver spoon treatment. He rises fast among his peers, and is quickly put into a special unit to bring down a man called Costello. Costello also happens to be Colin’s best buddy from way back. Costello, in case you are wondering, is Jack Nicholson’s character. Oh he’s cuddly, but when is Jack not cuddly in that terrifying sort of way?
Because of his ties to the underground, Billy is told by Dignam and Queenan (Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen respectively) that he is unfit for life as a police officer. After all, they say, who would believe that someone so seated in the street could be taken seriously as an officer? So they offer him another position. A deep undercover operative with Costello, that will help to bring down the biggest bad guy the Federal agents haven’t even been able to touch. He accepts the offer. Queenan and Dignam are the only two people who know he is a cop. In fact, his personnel file is locked by security measures.
And so it begins. A cat and mouse game of who can ferret out the other first. Queenan and Dignam want to bag Costello, but they’ve also got to figure out who his informants are on the inside. Billy just wants to bag Costello and get the hell out. And Colin is trying to figure out who the informant is on the inside of Costello’s crew.
Trouble is, in situations like this in tinsel town, nothing ever works out very smoothly. And if Scorsese is in charge of direction even a prebuilt storyline can be pretty intense.
People die, things blow up and much blood is shed. Not to provide anyone a real leg up, but just to isolate individuals. It’s not like Billy is helping Costello build up his empire, it’s built. In fact, it has been built since before he was born. It is all about the chase.
And this is where the writing gets a bit dull, and to be honest, it’s all very trite. It’s like Monahan took all the great film cliché’s and placed them into one very neat package. But I admit, I accepted it and let it run. Remember Face Off and Lock Up? The people who know who you are die right? Bingo, hit it in one! You know how the bad guy can’t get it up for his woman but the “other guy” (aka – the hero) can and she gets knocked up? TA-DA!
Yeah, it’s all very cheesy, but in the end, archetypes work because we don’t have to follow the bouncing ball while still trying to keep up. It frees the mind to accept them for the purposes of narrative. In Scorsese’s hands this is like putty to be worked. And like some kind of alchemist, he turns it into gold.
Almost every scene is tense in some way. Each character’s movements suddenly become epic in scope, even though they all live within the same city. If one of them makes a phone call, it’s important. It’s also potentially deadly to someone. Each sentence has some sort of important foreshadowing or advice on how they should move.
To give an example, there is a scene where two of Costello’s cronies are outside their digs. Billy is inside having Cranberry juice waiting on the word for their next job. The two cronies are outside watching people and one says to the other “Everyone who doesn’t pay attention to ya is a cop. Check it out.” And starts talking to people nearby who obviously aren’t cops to make his comedic point to his buddy. When Costello tells Billy to beat it, he’s running a new crew tonight, Billy goes outside. Where upon he is greeted with the chilling words “He’s a cop!” You can tell this affects Billy because he stops dead still, the music in the background fades back slightly, but continues. Then they explain that he ignored them, so he’s a cop. Laughing, they part ways.
Later, this comes back into play when one of the guys misinforms our plucky hero, but he shows up anyway. The fella then…expires. But it goes to show that everything said is important or significant in some way to the later events.
A couple of things I would like to note. I cannot stand any of the actors in this film. Not within the context of the film mind you, just in general. Even Jack is a bit tiresome these days. I take some of that back. I’ve never fully lost my faith in Martin Sheen. (But I digress…)
Under Scorsese’s direction, they all (yes, ALL) turned in stellar performances. Now if they can just get Alec Baldwin to stop scratching his nuts, we might be able to pay attention to the movie. What, does he shave it or something?
Even Leonardo, who lost me after Gilbert Grape was a damned fine Boston boy. And Mark Wahlberg’s delivery of a stream of obscenities rivals only that of R. Lee Emery. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not talking Shakespeare here. But for modern storytelling, the depth of development and the style with which it is all delivered is unsurpassed in an otherwise glutted market of over-hyped and useless “cinema”. Truly, if you want to compete it seems you have to have more blood, more swear words and more libido than the last guy.
Well, two outta three ain’t too bad, eh?