Saturday, October 7, 2006

Movie Review: The Departed

By John P. Meyer

Pedigreed: a modifier used to describe a film made by arguably the best director in the business, starring arguably the most charismatic actor in the business (no, I'm not referring to Matt Damon) and including a supporting cast loaded with talent the way you expect your Quiznos cheese steak to be loaded with prime rib ("the king of meats"). It's a characterization rife with opportunity for blown expectations and bitter disappointment; when you bring legends together, people expect a legendary outcome. Marty teamed up with Jack? Something worth watching had better transpire onscreen, or it's time for a lynching in the streets of New York, and I'm betting we could find some gangs up there to pull it off.

The Departed

In South Boston, where the state police force is waging war on organized crime, young undercover cop Billy Costigan is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Costello. While Billy is quickly gaining Costello's confidence, Colin Sullivan, a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the police department as an informer for the syndicate, is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the gangsters and the police that there's a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy--and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on The Departed

No rope needed, it turns out.

When was the last time you saw a Scorsese movie that didn't grab your viewing self by the short hairs and force him or her to sit at attention for the duration of the film? (Forget that Dylan documentary; criminy, I'm talking about his DRAMAS.) Well, your hairs are in for a good solid yanking again this time, mate, so strap yourself in for a two-and-a-half hour thrill ride called The Departed.

One reel into this Boston-based über-grit crime drama, Frank Costello (the Jack Nicholson mob boss character) is having a casual conversation with new employee Billy Costigan (the Leonardo DiCaprio undercover cop character), when he pulls from his desk drawer a ziplock bag containing a severed hand. As the conversation proceeds, he removes the bloody hand from the bag and gestures absently with it, eventually removing from its finger a gold ring which he tells his associate to deliver to the hand's formerly attached owner's wife. This is exactly the kind of material (I mean figuratively, or course) that Nicholson needed to juice up a career lately given over to touchy-feely comedic turns in films like About Schmidt and Something's Gotta Give. Atta boy, Jack! - it's good to see you've still got it in ya.

The story, for those who aren't Hong Kong film buffs (anyone left out there?), is lifted from Mou gaan dou (2002), distributed in the U.S. as Infernal Affairs. Scorsese and fellow producers went so far as to hire Siu Fai Mak - scripter of the original Hong Kong title - to assist William Monahan with screenwriting duties and make sure he didn't leave anything out, such as the breaking-the-plaster-arm-cast-to-search-for-the-hidden-listening-device scene. Basically, it's about two guys from the same tough Irish neighborhood (DiCaprio and the aforementioned Matt Damon) who pursue careers in law enforcement only to end up on opposite sides of the undercover razor wire. One character (Damon's Colin Sullivan) appears to be an upstanding clean-cut go-getter who rises rapidly in the ranks of the MA State Police based upon skill and intelligence, while behind the scenes he feeds sensitive cop operational data to his long-time mentor/surrogate father, crime lord Frank Costello. The other chap (DiCaprio's Billy Costigan) flunks out of the police academy, does hard time for assault and battery and then joins up with the Costello gang - all at the instigation of his law enforcement employees, to whom he continues to report. He's living what we crime drama film critics like to call a life of "deep cover" - meaning he's in deepest shit if Frank Costello finds out he's ratting him out to the cops.

Now, the twist is that both these guys are tasked by their (real) bosses with finding the mole in the opposing organization – so they end up looking for each other, providing for some tense circumstances while they sniff the evidentiary air. Like all double agents, they are more alike than they’d care to admit, even though one is a crook and the other something of a self-sacrificing hero. Per the movie’s tagline, when you’re looking at a loaded gun, the difference between cop and outlaw shrinks down to zilch.

DiCaprio and Damon are well-cast in roles to fit their personalities: Damon is charming and blatantly ambitious, confident to the point of distastefulness - even though it turns out he has occasional trouble getting it up for his live-in girlfriend. DiCaprio, on the other hand, is all about dependency and vulnerability, which probably explains why the live-in girlfriend of the Damon character enjoys going to bed with him - it's kind of a refreshing change of pace for her, I suppose. (Plus, he apparently produces wood on cue.) By the way, the lady in question is played by the waif-like Vera Farmiga, kind of a blue-eyed version of Kim Raver, and that's not a bad thing at all, I'm just saying. Farmiga's character, Madolyn, is a psychologist catering to those in the law enforcement profession, and she's not hurting for clients.

Also turning in outstanding performances are Martin Sheen as Queenan, head of the undercover sting operation; British actor Ray Winstone (of The Proposition fame) as "Mr. French", Costello's right hand man (hand still attached, in case you were wondering); and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Alec Baldwin in an understated and engagingly natural portrayal of Squad Leader Ellerby. Deserving of special mention is Mark Wahlberg, whose foul-mouthed wise-cracking Dignam plays a perfect foil to Queenan's formal authority figure. But, man, that hairdo - it looks troweled on.

I'm not going to surprise anyone by telling you that this is a very violent film. It’s a story of desperate, brutal men in extreme circumstances, and blood is bound to flow. The thrill of the thing is not knowing exactly whose blood is going to flow when. Just don't be surprised if not all the characters treading the boards are left standing at the end of the show.

HEARD AND NOTED:

"Nobody gives you anything - you have to take it." - Frank Costello to the young Colin Sullivan.

"There is no one more full of shit than a cop, except a cop on TV." - Frank Costello to Billy Costigan.

"Normally, he's a very nice guy. Don't judge him by this meeting alone." - Ellerby to the assembled crime task force, after they've been verbally reamed by Dignam.

"You don't have any cats... I like that." - pre-coital comments of Billy Costigan to Madolyn.

MEMORABLE IMAGE: the box suite at the opera, with Nicholson's visage bisected by red and black light; a beautiful black lady on his red side, and a blonde on his black side.

MOST POWERFUL WEAPON EMPLOYED IN THE FILM: the cell phone.

Related stories

• Movie review: Body of Lies (Oct. 10, 2008)
• Movie review part deux: The Dark Knight (July 20, 2008)

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Comments

Jeremy Dunck Staff

Since I'm allergic to cats, I can appreciate Costigan's point of view. ;)

3 years, 1 month ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

John Meyer Staff

Pretty creative pickup line, I've gotta admit. And it worked!

(Course, the fact that it was DiCaprio doing the delivery may have had something to do with that...)

3 years, 1 month ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )