We’re All On Our Way Out, Act Accordingly
“How’s your motha’?””Oh, she’s on her way out.” “We all are act accordingly.” No quote is more appropriate for the 2006 star-studded drama The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese. This film is up there for one of the most explicit, vicious, and gritty movies to win the Oscar for Best Picture. When The Departed won Martin Scorsese said that he was surprised the film had won. He said that because the film is such a tough, nasty, and violent film he never thought about the idea of awards while he was filming it. But with all the stars in this film it’s no wonder it won because there were no other actors left to play in any other movies. Roughly 50% of its $90 million budget went to the actors’ salaries. Leonardo DiCaprio playing the lead role of Billy Costigan Jr., Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan, Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello, Mark Wahlberg as Staff Sergeant Dignam, Martin Sheen as Captain Qeenan, and lastly Alec Baldwin playing Commissioner Ellerby. The cast, let alone adding Martin Scorsese as the director, makes The Departed a most see. It’s also a must see if you want to continue reading because there will be a lot of spoilers through this review.
First and foremost here is a recap of the film for those of us who have forgotten bits of this epic tale; South Boston Crime Boss Francis “Frank” Costello raises and educates young Colin Sullivan to become a mole for him in the Massachusetts State Police Department. On the other side of the law Billy Costigan Jr. is assigned by Staff Sergeant Dignam and Captain Queenan to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by doing hard time and selling drugs with his cousin Sean. (Played by the always dirt bag looking guy, Kevin Corrigan. Who, despite is disparaging comment about Puerto Ricans in the film, is actually of Puerto Rican descent in real-life.) While Costigan quickly gains Costello’s trust, Sullivan does everything in his power to try and find out who Costigan is. Each man becomes deeply consumed by their double lives, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations they have penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police that there is a rat in their system, Costigan and Sullivan are both in danger of being exposed. While both Sullivan and Costigan do everything they can to find the rat, Sullivan has Captain Queenan followed because Queenan wont reveal the identity of his informant, Billy Costigan, at the risk he may get killed. Queenan meets up with Billy alone at a disclosed location. Sullivan informs Costello’s guys that he knows where the rat is. As this happens Billy gets a call from Costello’s guys telling him to meet up with them to kill the rat. Billy and Queenan are in deep now. Queenan ends up stalling for Billy so he can get out without being seen. This costs Captain Queenan his life after he is tossed off a building. After Queenan death and Dignam gets put on a leave of absence for punching Sullivan in the face, Billy has no one he can trust besides his ex-therapist and current girlfriend to Colin Sullivan, Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) who Billy has been sleeping with. Using Queenan’s phone, Sullivan reaches Costigan, and fails to persuade him to quit his work as a mole. Sullivan learns from Queenan’s diary that Costello was an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He worries that his identity as a mole for Costello may be revealed. With Costigan’s help, Costello is tailed by the police to a cocaine pick-up, where a gunfight erupts between his crew and police, during which almost all of Costello’s crew is killed. Sullivan confronts the wounded Costello, who admits he is an FBI informant. Sullivan shoots and kills him, which everyone later applauds him for the next day at the force. In good faith, Costigan comes to see him, seeking to get his civilian identity restored and to collect his back pay. He tells Sullivan he intends to resume his civilian life. Sullivan leaves to look up Costigan’s employee record when Costigan notices an envelope from Costello on Sullivan’s desk. Costigan finally realizes Sullivan is Costello’s mole. Returning to his desk, Sullivan realizes that Costigan has figured out his true identity, so he erases Costigan’s employee records from the police computer system. That night Madolyn tells Sullivan she’s pregnant, but doesn’t reveal who the father is. Later on, Costigan receives an envelope from Costello’s attorney revealing Sullivan’s plan as a mole, ironically Costello trusted Billy more than anyone, so when he was killed the tapes went to him and not Sullivan. Billy sends a copy to Sullivan. Madolyn intercepts it, listens to it, and realizes that Sullivan was working with Frank. Sullivan meets Billy to try to pay him off, but Billy arrests him. Billy has called Brown (Anthony Anderson), his friend from the academy, to help him, and Brown allows him to take Sullivan down the elevator. When the elevator opens, Sullivan’s academy friend Barrigan (James Badge Dale) shoots Billy, killing him. When Brown gets downstairs and sees what’s happened, Barrigan shoots him as well, and then reveals to Sullivan that he also worked for Costello.
Sullivan then shoots Barrigan. He tells the police that Barrigan was Frank Costello’s mole and recommends Costigan to be honored by the department. At the funeral, he asks a crying Madolyn about the baby, but she walks right past him. Reveling that the child was probably Billy’s the whole time. When Sullivan returns to his apartment, he finds Dignam waiting for him, Dignam has become aware that Sullivan was Costello’s primary mole, due to the information given to Madolyn by Billy near the end. Dignam kills Sullivan. In the final scene, a rat runs along the outside balcony railing, framed by the gold dome of the Massachusetts State House in the background. Wow, now that we all remember lets really delve into this film.
When receiving the top award from the Director’s Guild of America for this film, Martin Scorsese said that this “is the first movie I have ever done with a plot.” Believe it or not The Departed is actually an adaption of a foreign film Infernal Affairs (2002). Martin Scorsese did not realize this was a remake of a Hong Kong movie until after he had agreed to direct it. Once aware Scorsese deliberately chose not to watch the film until after he’d completed The Departed. This made The Departed the first and only remake of a foreign film to win an Oscar for Best Picture. It’s also the first Best Picture Oscar-winner of the 21stcentury that wasn’t released on VHS in the United States, and the first to be released on the short-lived HD-DVD format.
My favorite Easter-egg about this film is that whenever anybody is killed onscreen or talks about murder, Scorsese has a hidden “X” positioned somewhere in the frame as an homage to the 1932 version of Scarface (one of Scorsese’s favorite movies) which does the same trick. Throughout the film, most of the X’s are shown in the background to mark characters for death; examples include Costigan walking through the Logan airport while talking to Sgt. Dignam, Queenan falling to his death, on the building’s glass windows are taped in an X, and Sullivan in his office discussing the flow of information with Costello while an X is created by light shining through the window.
But what truly makes The Departed a Best Picture is the performance by the actors. Mark Wahlberg based his performance on a local Dorchester police officer who’d arrested him about two dozen times in his youth and the reactions of his parents “who had to come bail me out with their grocery money.” Jack Nicholson’s character is based on infamous Boston mob boss and FBI informant Whitey Bulger. The film’s technical advisor, Thomas B. Duffy, was a retired Massachusetts State Police major who worked out of Boston for nearly thirty years and specialized in organized crime. He was very involved with Whitey Bulger’s case. Duffy appears as the Governor of Massachusetts who delivers a speech to the graduating police cadets. There was an unconfirmed sighting of Bulger at a theater showing of the film by a deputy sheriff in San Diego, California. Bulger would later be captured in Santa Monica, California on June 22, 2011; he’d been living in an apartment complex just a few blocks away from the production offices of ‘GK Films’ who produced Edge of Darkness (2010), which Duffy also appeared in.
But the real star in this film is Leonardo DiCaprio. He managed to perfectly portray a sustained nervous breakdown throughout a 151-minute movie. He brought sympathy and vulnerability to an Irish street kid persona, all in a very convincing Boston accent. The scene where Leo is at his best comes when he is in his ex-therapist’s office, Madolyn, she asks him how he feels and he gives an emotionally wrenching and anger filled monologue on being paranoid to the point of suicide, all while keeping up the stance of a Boston tough guy and maintaining his position as the smartest guy in the room. I truly think this was one of Leo’s best roles and he should have gotten a nomination for Best Actor, even if it wasn’t clear whom the lead-role in the film was, he should have won it too. That in fact is possibly reason why Leo didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for his amazing performance. Warner Bros. Studios initially did not want to favor Leo over his co-stars and place him in the leading actor category. They favored his role in Blood Diamond (2006) more (which he eventually did get nominated for.) But Leo himself refused to campaign against his male co-stars in the supporting actor category, so Warner bought no supporting actor ads for Leo, and he didn’t receive a nomination. What a travesty it is that Leo had to wait another 10 years before picking up his first Oscar. This was the best movie of the year (maybe the decade) with the best actors performing at their highest, and still Leo stood out. And for that, you’re going to give him two pills? Not an Oscar but two pills? Why not just give him a bottle of scotch and a handgun to blow his f****ng head off.
