Review // The Departed

Throughout Hollywood’s antiquated history, the mob movie has always reigned supreme. We’ve seen the juggernauts of the genre (Scarface, Casino, Donnie Brasco), and as of late, the underlings that fall in the shadows of these aforementioned giants that do nothing more than tug on the bottom of your shirt seeking even the slightest bit of praise.

When we were first introduced to the Corleone family in 1972’s The Godfather, America quickly became hooked on the depiction of the underground crime ring. Martin Scorsese’s spree of hits, namely Goodfellas, only further cemented this infatuation with the mob and built up quite a legacy for Scorsese as a filmmaker. His gritty, no-holds-barred take on the mob provides an immense sense of realism that reverberates in all the right ways with his audience. Now, Scorsese is back with The Departed — a modern take on the mob that works extremely well on so many levels, all while featuring a Godly melting pot of some of the film industry’s best actors.

That last sentence wasn’t just fluff — The Departed presents a stellar cast of some of Hollywood’s best A-listers: Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Alec Baldwin stand out most notably and all present a better than average performance — and each brings their own distinctive syle to boot.

Of course, this conglomeration of names wouldn’t mean anything if the movie, itself were terrible — which it’s far from. The plot is full of cliches such as the whole good cop/bad cop situation that’s been done to death, though in this case, everything just works. As played out as mob portrayals have become on the big screen, The Departed just feels plain fresh, offering plenty of “Oh, shit!” moments that seemingly come out of nowhere.

Usually praised for his roles as “the good guy,” Matt Damon shares the lead role as Sgt. Sullivan — a baby-face cop who quickly advances up the ranks in the Massachusetts State Police force. It sounds exactly like another good guy situation…that is until you’re introduced to his backstory.

Sullivan has another role that precedes his protectorate position: he’s an undercover member of the mob brought up by the organization’s boss, Frank Castillo (Nicholson). He’s there as Castillo’s mob informant and quickly does all he can to reroute the police force according to his “true” employer’s agenda. As you’d expect from a Sergeant of the police force, he has it made: the beautiful girlfriend, nice apartment, and the respect and authority of his fuzz coworkers.

This is all in stark contrast to DiCaprio’s lowlife character, William Costigan Jr. With a family that already has ties to the mob, and a permanent record that’s not exactly fantastic to begin with, Costigan attempts to clean himself up. He goes through the police academy training program aspiring to do good — only to be quickly shot down during a job interview with smartass cop Sergeant Dignam (Wahlberg). They work out a deal that puts Costigan on the police force, but only as an undercover agent within mob boss Frank Castillo’s regime to perform the exact function as Damon’s character — only from opposite sides of the spectrum.

As you can imagine, paths cross, and while it’s all bad news bears for the characters portrayed in the film, it makes for one hell of an entertaining ride all the way up to the out-with-a-bang end. Dialog exchanges between characters are smart, witty, and do a great job to sell the movie alongside the intersecting plot-lines that unite DiCaprio and Damon’s characters. The tension between each character and their respective agency is just as enthralling and intense as the abrupt ending that’ll smack you across the face and leave you begging for more, but oh-so-pleased with the outcome.

To put it simply, The Departed proves that Director Martin Scorsese still reigns as one of the mob movie’s top yarn spinners, while providing viewers with one of the most entertaining flicks in quite a long time.

Score: