The Departed

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Departed is a 2006 American film by director Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson. It is a remake of the popular Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs. The Departed's screenplay was written by William Monahan, who based it on the original script by Felix Chong and Siu Fai Mak.

Tagline:

• Cops or criminals. When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

[edit] Plot

The film begins "some years ago" in Boston, Massachusetts, where crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) takes ten year-old Colin Sullivan under his wing with an intention of him being a mole for his crew one day. Twenty years pass and Sullivan (Matt Damon) is in training for the Massachusetts State Police. His classmates include Barrigan (James Badge Dale), Brown (Anthony Anderson) and Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). Upon joining the State Police, Sullivan begins leaking information for Costello; meanwhile, Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) assign Costigan to commit assault, go to prison, and then begin selling drugs with his cousin to get noticed by Costello for the purpose of obtaining information.

Sullivan is soon promoted to the Special Investigation Unit headed by Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin). Meanwhile, Costigan begins assaulting friends of Costello, which provokes Costello to take an interest in him; he tests and accepts him into his crew. Sullivan begins a romantic relationship with criminal psychiatrist Madolyn Madden (Vera Farmiga), who is also having sessions with Costigan; he, meanwhile, is committing felonies with Costello's right-hand man, Mr. French (Ray Winstone) and is obtaining information in the process.

After a year, Costello goes to sell stolen missile-guidance microprocessors (which turn out to be fake) to Chinese buyers along with his crew, under the observation of the State Police. Through the use of text messaging, Sullivan tries to save them from arrest while Costigan tries to send the cops details. When it becomes obvious that tip-offs are going in both directions, Costigan panics; Sullivan, who has just moved into his condo with Madolyn, asks Costello for the social security data of his crew in order to search for cops in police records. At the same time, Costigan discovers that Costello is an informant for the FBI around the time he has sex with Madolyn.

Costello and Sullivan meet in a porno theater, where Costello gives Sullivan an envelope full of the crew’s records. Costigan then follows Sullivan into the streets, where the latter stabs a man he thinks to be following him. A few days later, worried Costigan meets with Queenan on a rooftop to discuss his abandoning the mission; Costello’s crew arrives when Billy receives a call from Delahunt, one of Costello's men, and alerts Queenan that he was followed. As the two head for the exit, they realize it's too late as Costello's crew has just arrived outside the building. Queenan tells Costigan to escape through the fire exit and that he'll divert the crew. This, however, backfires on Queenan when the men rush in and begin assaulting him. As Costigan has finally made it outside, Queenan is thrown out a high storey window and dies on impact before Costigan's eyes. A shootout between the cops and Costello’s crew takes place, with Costello’s crew escaping, albeit with a few wounds and casualties. During the post-fight, Costigan discovers that Delahunt, who was mortally-wounded during the shootout, has figured out that he is an undercover cop. To his relief, Delahunt dies before he is able to alert the others.

Hostilities over Queenan’s death break out between Sullivan and Dignam, with Dignam (who suspects Colin might be working for Costello) taking a leave of absence as Ellerby takes over. Sullivan calls Costigan on Queenan’s phone, posing as one of his allies. A few days later, Costello and his crew head out to an old warehouse to retrieve a supply of cocaine. During the ride to the warehouse, Sullivan realizes that Costello is an FBI informant, and leads the entire force to the warehouse, where another shootout occurs. This time, all of Costello’s crew, including Mr. French, is killed and Sullivan shoots dead a wounded Costello after confirmation of his status as an FBI informant.

Back at the station, Costigan has a debrief with Sullivan who has assumed the role of his boss. Costigan asks what Sullivan will do about the rat on the inside, and Sullivan replies, "We're gonna find the prick." While Sullivan is out of the room, Costigan sees the envelope with the crew’s records on Sullivan’s desk and flees. Costigan later sends Sullivan audio evidence of his collaboration with Costello made from comprehensive audio records that Costello kept, but Madolyn listens to the recording first. On the phone, Costigan tells Sullivan to meet him on the roof of the building where Queenan was killed, at which time he arrests him. Officer Brown arrives at the behest of Costigan and reluctantly allows him to take Sullivan downstairs while instructing him that he has crucial evidence pointing to Sullivan as the police mole. As the lift door opens on the ground floor, Costigan is shot and killed by Barrigan, who reveals that he was working for Costello as well. Brown is also killed by Barrigan as he comes down the stairs and finds Billy lying dead on the floor. Sullivan then kills Barrigan and proceeds to gives testimony that Costigan and Brown were killed by Barrigan. He recommends Costigan for the Medal of Merit decoration.

Sullivan attends Costigan’s funeral, where a tearful Madolyn refuses to speak with him. He returns home to find Dignam waiting with a gun drawn, having discovered that he was Costello’s man. Realizing the situation, Sullivan says "Okay". Dignam pulls the trigger and kills him. After he leaves, the camera pans to the windowsill where a lone rat walks outside the condo, overlooking the Massachusetts State House.

[edit] Themes

Film critic Stanley Kauffman describes a major theme of The Departed as one of the oldest in drama—the concept of identity—and how it "affects one's actions, emotions, self-knowledge, even dreams."<ref name="Kauffmann">Kauffmann, Stanley. (Oct 30, 2006). Themes and Schemes. New Republic. Vol. 235, Issue 18. </ref>

The father-son relationship is also a theme throughout the film: <ref>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06279/727779-120.stm</ref>

• Costello acts as a father to Sullivan; As a code, Sullivan calls Costello "Dad" whenever receiving a phone call from him.
• The childhood photograph of Madolyn is symbolic of both Billy and Colin's position towards paternity. Sullivan has failed to identify with a full masculine identity, and therefore fears mother-father-child intimacy. Costigan is vulnerable and open, and places the picture on the wall; symbolic of his desire for a fertile relationship. It is hinted, with Sullivan's inability to perform and possibly more-than-normal surprise at Madolyn's sonogram, that perhaps the baby is Costigan's and that in some form, his identity succeeds in living on through his son.

There is another important theme of the film, based on rats, deception, and the creation of a web of lies [which is built up as something important] for its own sake. These parts of the theme are intertwined with the ideas of human identity:

• Coupled with the themes of identity in humanity is the overlaying and yet still very layered theme of 'rats'. It is difficult, until the end, to find who is lying or whose word is trustworthy, and even then a number of things are still not clear (was Costello actually going to give Sullivan up to the FBI too? Was the character of Delahunt actually a cop or not, like Costello said?). The ending shot, where the camera pans up to view a rat crawling along a railing directly in front of the Gold-domed State House is the final punch in this theme. The big wigs such as the FBI, or Whitey Bulger's (the character Costello was partly based on) politician brother, sit on high thrones playing with the lives of the cops and criminals.
• This idea is further backed up by Costello's comment about Lennon's 'tuber' quote, saying that he could created something big out of nothing. That is to say, the cops/criminals game of death and strife that is played out is truly that, a game born of the greed and carelesness of the higher-ups.

The film also carries along Scorsese's style of linking sexual potency (and impotency) to violence.

• Repeated references are made to the physical and medical potency of Costello and Sullivan. Madolyn refers obliquely to sexual dysfunction in Sullivan after their first night together. Costello repeatedly reacts hostilely to implications that he is either gay or impotent.
• This trend has been seen in several earlier Scorsese movies, especially in Raging Bull.

[edit] Homage

• In one scene, Scorsese uses a clip from John Ford's 1935 film The Informer, which details a poor Irishman who rats out his friend (a wanted IRA officer) to the British Authorities.
• The conclusion of the movie where Dignam fires the shot at Colin is a signature homage that filmmaker Martin Scorsese uses in reference to the 1903 classic film The Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S. Porter. Scorsese also uses this at the end of Goodfellas where Joe Pesci's character is seen shooting at the audience at the very end of the film.
• The scene where psychiatrist Madolyn Madden walks away from Sullivan at Costigan's funeral mirrors the scene in The Third Man where Anna walks away from Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) at Harry Lime's (Orson Welles) funeral. Anna had a fling with Holly but could not forgive him for betraying Harry, her lover and a friend to Holly, to the Vienna police.
• Shortly after she sees Costigan, Madolyn offers a "French donut" to her boyfriend Sullivan. It is a croissant, a pastry in the shape of a horn - in French, Italian ("corna"), Spanish and Portuguese cultures, the sign of cheating. In Amici miei, atto II, a Mario Monicelli film, Philippe Noiret's character, which has an affair with a baker's wife, comes home offering his own wife "fresh little horns (croissants) from the baker", implying that he cheated his wife and cuckolded the baker. Similar jokes are made in Italian comedy cult "Fantozzi Contro Tutti," with Fantozzi's freaking out about his co-workers references on cornas and French croissants, right after his wife confesses to him that she fell for the baker's apprentice. Scorsese's own mother tells a joke about a cornutto contente (a resigned, cuckolded man, but translating literally from the Italian she says "happy man with horns") in Scorsese's Goodfellas.
• The scene in the rooftop where Costigan pushes a handcuffed Sullivan resembles a similar one in The Untouchables (1987 film), with Kevin Costner and Billy Drago. In this scene, however, Frank Nitti (Drago) is thrown off the building.
• The Departed is the third film in which Scorcese has used the song Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones when depicting organized crime. The previous movies were Goodfellas and Casino. The song, which Greil Marcus has described as being the symbol of the death of 60s utopia, is actually used in two occasions in The Departed.
• The term 'the faithful departed' is a reference in Roman Catholicism to the belief that baptised souls who have not atoned for their sins will be unable to attain to grace without prayer and the sacrifice of the Mass. Without these the departed are believed to reside in Purgatory. This is similar to the Hong Kong version's original name "Infernal Affairs" in that both bear religious connotations.
• Coincidentally Infernal Affairs featured a cop wearing a Boston Red Sox cap.

• As a homage to Howard Hawks Scarface (1932 film), Scorsese inserted the X (a symbol of death, or departure) in various shots. It can be clearly seen as a shadow on the wall when Sullivan is on the phone, along the walking carpet at the airport and on every window of the deserted building where Costigan meets Queenan.
• The shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, when Matt Damon (Colin Sullivan) was taking a shower.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Boston setting

The film heavily incorporates the culture and history of Boston. The first images are news clips from the busing riots of the 1970s, over which Costello muses about the city's troubled racial history. Several times, Dignam refers to Costigan as "lace curtain Irish", a term used primarily in the Boston metropolitan area by working-class Irish to disparage upper-middle class Irish-Americans who have strayed from their roots. Despite the tendency of films to use generic phone numbers, Boston's 617 area code can be clearly seen on various characters' cell phones. The Massachusetts State House is also featured in the film as a symbol of Colin Sullivan's ambition. The film includes the song "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys, an Irish band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts. Other references include state locations such as Route 128, regions such as the North Shore and Worcester, and state slang like "Staties", a local nickname for the Massachusetts State Police.

The character Frank Costello was largely based on James "Whitey" Bulger, a real life Irish-American mobster in Boston; ironically, Whitey was believed to have been seen coming out of a theater showing the film in San Diego in November 2006. Matt Damon's character is based on John Connolly, the FBI agent who tipped off Bulger for years, allowing him to evade arrest. In real life, Bulger went into hiding and is still presumed to be at large; Connolly is currently imprisoned for his role in Bulger's criminal activities. Costigan's undercover role as a former State trooper who joins the Irish mob parallels the story of Richard Marinick, a former State trooper who later joined Whitey Bulger's crime syndicate.

[edit] Reactions

Andrew Lau, the co-director of Infernal Affairs, who was interviewed by Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily on October 9, 2006, said "Of course I think the version I made is better, but the Hollywood version is pretty good too. [Scorsese] made the Hollywood version more attuned to American culture." Andy Lau, one of the main actors in Infernal Affairs, when asked about how the movie compares to the original, said: "The Departed was too long and it felt as if Hollywood had combined all three Infernal Affairs movies together."<ref>Andy Lau comments on The Departed (Chinese) (2006-10-06). Retrieved on 2006-10-06.</ref> Lau pointed out that the remake featured some of the "golden quotes" of the original but did have much more swearing. He ultimately rated The Departed 8/10 and said that the Hollywood remake is worth a view, though "the effect of combining the two female characters in the original into one isn't as good as in the original," according to Lau's spokeswoman Alice Tam.<ref>Andy Lau Gives 'Departed' an 8 Out of 10 (2006-10-07). Retrieved on 2006-10-07.</ref>

General critical consensus after the film's release has been overwhelmingly positive; the film is currently one of the highest-rated wide release films of 2006 on Rotten Tomatoes at 92%, the third highest on Metacritic, and the eighth highest on Yahoo! All-Time Top Movies (as determined by users)<ref>http://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/top10;_ylt=ArL0cuK.N6E1ht6eovYCdrhfVXcA</ref>. As of November 3, 2006, The Departed is also the highest-rated film of 2006 on IMDb's Top 250 at #71 <ref>http://www.imdb.com/chart/top</ref>, and among the highest-rated films of the decade on IMDb's "Best of the 2000s" List at #12. <ref>http://www.imdb.com/chart/2000s</ref>.

Michael Patrick MacDonald, author of the Southie memoirs "All Souls" and "Easter Rising" wrote an Op Ed Piece for the Boston Globe <ref>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/11/revisiting_southies_culture_of_death/?p1=MEWell_Pos3</ref> praising the film's ability to recreate the "strangulating" culture created by Boston gangsters, politicians, and law enforcement officials at all levels of local, state, and federal government - a culture of violent death and silence that led to years of young suicides and an epidemic of painkilling through heroin and Oxycontin. The Op Ed piece caused a stir in Boston, eliciting a 688 word missive from a South Boston state senator as well as letters from South Boston real estate agents concerned about the "negative" depiction of the "trendy" neighborhood of South Boston.

[edit] Box office

Upon its release, The Departed opened at #1 at the U.S. box office with a robust gross of US$26,887,467, beating fellow openers Employee of the Month and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. It entered at #2 in the UK (behind The Devil Wears Prada), but took the top spot the following week and held onto it for a further week. As of November 20th 2006, the movie has grossed $114,094,680 domestically and $183,494,680 worldwide.

[edit] Trivia

• Matt Damon is from Cambridge, MA. Mark Wahlberg returned to his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts in this film. Wahlberg's schedule was moved to the beginning of principal photography so he would have time in his schedule for another film, as was Alec Baldwin's.
• Certain stunts were performed and filmed in the old Fore River Shipyard just south of Boston. This location may have been chosen for the sightlines in the background so the Boston skyline would be true.
• Early in the film, Frank Costello uses James Joyce's term non serviam to assert his gangland theories of independence and leadership. The term is originally uttered by Satan in Joyce's novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to God in defiance.
• Jack Nicholson signed on to play Frank Costello because in the past ten years he had done mainly comedic films, and he wanted to play a villain again. He has mentioned that he considers his character of Costello to be an "ultimate embodiment of evil." <ref>http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/lifestyle/sfl-linicholsonoct11,0,3938441.story?coll=sfla-features-headlines</ref>
• During production, Nicholson refused to wear a Boston Red Sox hat and instead wore his New York Yankees hat.
• Leonardo DiCaprio was cast in the title role in The Good Shepherd, but he dropped out due to salary issues (although it was claimed at the time it was due to his larger role than Damon in this project). Coincidentally, his co-star Matt Damon took his intended role in that film.
• Scorsese regular Robert De Niro was considered for the roles of both Frank Costello and Captain Queenan. Preoccupied with directing his own film, The Good Shepherd, he turned down both roles.
• Matt Damon's character is seen playing rugby in the openside flanker position, however, he is later revealed to be wearing the number ten jersey, which is usually worn by the first-five-eighths (or fly-half).
• The missiles with a sky blue paint as seen in the police briefing are Chinese HQ-2 SAMs.
• Billy Costigan speaks with his cousin on his aunt's porch early in the film. The same porch can be seen in the opening shots of the film Good Will Hunting
• English actor Jim Broadbent makes a brief appearance in a photograph as William Costigan Sr., father of Leonardo Di Caprio's character.
• Costigan sends Sullivan a recording of his conversation with Costello that his girlfriend hears first, revealing to her that Sullivan is a rat. The conversation, shown earlier in the film, takes place on cell phones - with no recording devices anywhere in sight.

[edit] See also

• Infernal Affairs
• Infernal Affairs II
• Infernal Affairs III

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Fansite of The Departed
• Official website of The Departed
• IMDB entry of The Departed
• The Departed Reviews at Metacritic.com

de:Departed – Unter Feinden es:Infiltrados fr:Les Infiltrés (film) it:The Departed nl:The Departed ja:ディパーテッド pl:Infiltracja (film 2006) zh:神鬼無間