The Departed

The Departed
File:The Departed poster.jpg Promotional Poster
Directed by	Martin Scorsese
Written by	William Monahan
Produced by	Brad Pitt Brad Grey Graham King
Starring	Leonardo DiCaprio Matt Damon Jack Nicholson Mark Wahlberg Martin Sheen Ray Winstone Vera Farmiga Alec Baldwin
Cinematography	Michael Ballhaus
Music by	Howard Shore
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures (USA, Argentina, Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore) Entertainment Film Distributors (UK) TFM Distribution (France) Fox-Warner (Switzerland) Long Shong Entertainment Multimedia Company (Taiwan)
Release dates	October 6, 2006 (USA)
Running time	150 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$90,000,000

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

Plot

Template:Spoiler The beginning of the film sees crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) walk into a small diner which owes him money. At the counter is a young boy, Colin Sullivan. Frank explains to Colin that if he ever needs some extra money, he knows where to find him.

The film cuts to the present, with Sullivan’s entrance into the Massachusetts State Police. Colin (now played by Matt Damon) is still very close to Costello, and has entered the police force to work as a mob mole. (Sullivan’s impeccable family history allow for his graceful acceptance into the force as well as his quick rise to leadership positions with the police.) Meanwhile, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), a hot-tempered youth with a checkered family past, has also recently joined the police force. Billy is propositioned by State Police Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) to work as a mole inside Costello’s mob syndicate. (Billy’s temper and family history make him ideal to serve in this capacity.) Though Billy doesn’t get along with the abrasive Dignam, he accepts Queenan’s proposition to act as a mole. Billy is "fired" from the police and serves time in prison to help build a background as an up-and-coming criminal. When he is released, he immediately starts selling drugs with his lowlife cousin to continue his slow infiltration to the Boston underworld. After Billy attacks a pair of Italian gangsters from Providence, Rhode Island, his life is in danger because other men from the same Mafia outfit will soon seek retribution. Costello, who seems to want an earner like Billy on his crew, enters the fray and agrees to make a few calls to save Billy’s life. At this point, Billy also meets Mr. French (Ray Winstone), Costello’s right-hand muscle man who smashes a cast on Billy’s truly broken hand to see if he’s carrying a wire.

Sullivan is promoted to the Special Investigation Unit headed by Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin), where he is very connected and able to give Costello any information he wants, except whether or not there is a police mole in Costello’s organization. Sullivan meets Madolyn Madden, a psychiatrist who works with cops and criminals, by chance in an elevator; they slowly fall in love. Ironically, Madolyn has sessions with Billy and the two talk about the necessity of lies and deception throughout everyday life. Billy starts to fall for Madolyn as well, creating a very complicated love triangle. Madolyn’s attraction to Billy grows (possibly caused by the gradually growing distance between Colin and her, due to his loyalty to Costello and the difficulty of leading a double life).

Both Sullivan and Billy become consumed by their double lives, torn between allegiances to both sides. As secrets start to leak out in the police and the mob, both sides become aware that a mole is within their midst, referring to him (the mole) as a "rat". Both sides play games to try and smoke out their respective moles before their own mole is identified and killed. Billy, frustrated at the length of time he has to serve undercover, fears Costello will soon discover his identity and murder him. Colin continues to save Costello from traps while still unsuccessfully trying to discover who the police mole is (only Dignam and Queenan know, and they refuse to say or share information concerning such information to anybody). Around this time, Madolyn and Billy share a night of passion. Billy also learns of Costello's involvement with the FBI as an informant, and divulges this information to Queenan at his home.

Billy later goes to meet Queenan and talk on the rooftop of an abandoned building, anxiously informing Queenan that Costello has become increasingly unstable and dangerous and that he can't take the pressures of staying undercover anymore. Queenan thanks Billy for his service and assures him that he'll pull him out as soon as possible. However, Sullivan, in an attempt to discover the identity of Queenan's undercover officer, had Queenan followed by officers under the pretense that Colin has reason to suspect that Queenan is the mole within the state police. The officers report the building's address to Sullivan, who then tips off Costello that Queenan is meeting with the mole and gives him the address of the building. Costello sends his men to kill the mole, who then call Billy and tell him to meet them at the building's address to eliminate the mole. Billy, realizing that Queenan had been followed to the meeting, scrambles to leave before Costello's men arrive. Queenan, confident that Costello's men will not harm him since he is a state police captain and concerned with protecting Billy's life and identity, stays behind to buy Billy some time to exit the building by using the fire escape stairs. However, when Costello's men find Queenan and he refuses to divulge the location of his mole, he is thrown off the building to his bloody death, which Billy witnesses. A shootout ensues between Costello's men and the police officers who had been surveiling Captain Queenan, while Billy is able to exit the building safely and meet Costello's men on the outside, making it look like he had just arrived to meet them there. After they return to their hideout, one of Costello's men, who was fatally wounded in the gunfire, uses his final words to voice his suspicions (only to Billy) as to how he was able to show up at the correct location, despite being given the wrong address.

File:DepartedPicture.jpg

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson in a scene from The Departed.

Ellerby, in charge after Queenan's murder, orders Dignam to turn over the files on the mole to Sullivan. Dignam, irate that Sullivan had Queenan followed, refuses; he is put on paid leave after striking Sullivan, who claims that he was just doing his job. Sullivan goes through Queenan's files and, although he doesn’t learn Billy’s identity, he does learn that Costello is an FBI informant. Spooked by the knowledge about the FBI, he tells Costello that he is clear to make a deal one night − but secretly, Colin has informed police about the deal. Police ambush the deal and kill most of Costello’s men; Mr. French committs suicide shortly before his vehicle explodes. Billy is saved because he feared a raid and left before police came. Costello escapes the shootout wounded, but is confronted by Sullivan, who tries to get Costello to reveal the truth about being an FBI informant. Costello avoids the question before admitting to it, and then attempts to shoot Colin before his young protege shoots him several times, killing him.

With the undercover mission effectively over, Billy comes to the station to claim his big monetary reward and reclaim his identity. Sullivan congratulates him and leaves the office for a moment to retrieve Billy's personnel file. Billy realizes that Sullivan is in fact the mole (evident by the envelope Costello's men were to mail to the mole on the inside, sitting on Sullivan's desk) and runs out of the police station before Sullivan returns. When Sullivan returns to the now empty office, he realizes that Billy knows he is the mole and quickly erases Billy's personnel file from the department's database.

Incredibly, Billy learns that Costello (before dying) recorded most of his conversations with Sullivan, to use them if necessary in the future; the tapes are delivered to Billy upon Costello’s death. Billy sends a CD with the recorded conversations to Colin's apartment, but Madolyn becomes curious when she sees Billy's name listed on the return address and opens the package and plays the CD while Colin is in the shower. Upon learning of Sullivan's true identity from the conversations, she leaves him, even after she recently revealed that she was pregnant. (It is never confirmed that Colin is the father. Due to his impotency and her sexual encounter with Billy, this is unclear.)

Colin calls the number Billy provided with the CD and arranges a meeting at the rooftop of the building where Queenan had been killed. Billy beats Colin and cuffs him, saying he will use the tapes to prove his innocence and reclaim his now-deleted identity. Officer Brown barges in and takes aim at Billy, warning him to let go of Sullivan before Billy reminds him that they were both cadets at the police academy together and instructing him that he left evidence for Brown to indicate Colin is working for Costello. Billy drags Sullivan off to the elevator. In a moment of despair, Colin realizes his inner evil and tearfully asks Billy to kill him while they take the elevator to the ground floor. Billy, speaking in a figurative sense, says "I am killing you". As the two exit the elevator, Billy is suddenly shot dead by one of Colin’s fellow policemen, who reveals that he too is a Costello mole inside the force (but, obviously, not as "big time" as Sullivan). The policeman is also aware that Costello was an FBI informant and tells Sullivan that since they're the only two left now, they have to watch out for each other to make sure nobody ever learns of their identities as moles. Brown sees them in time and is shocked to find Billy lying dead on the floor, just as the officer shoots him in the head as well. Sullivan reciprocates by immediately killing the helpful dirty cop; he later lies about the events to investigators when he is questioned as to what occurred.

With essentially everyone now dead and Madolyn refusing to speak to him, Sullivan is praised as a hero and quietly continues his life of policework. He returns home one day with a bag of groceries in hand but sees someone else in the apartment — it’s Dignam, who is wearing bags on his feet and gloves on his hands to indicate that he is preventing evidence from being left in the area. (It is presumed that Madolyn informed Dignam who the mole was, having previously been given a secret envelope by Billy to open in the event he died or was not heard from in two weeks.) Resigned to his fate, Sullivan simply says "Okay," as Dignam hesitates for a second before pulling the trigger. Colin drops dead in the doorway as Dignam covers up his head with a hat and quietly walks out. A pool of blood gathers underneath Sullivan's body as the movie's parting shot pans up and focuses on the apartment window: the Massachusetts State House figuring prominently in the background, and a lone rat walking on the window ledge.

Themes

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The idea of choosing either loyalty or self-preservation is a main theme of the film.

• Colin Sullivan kills Frank Costello (who is in essence his father, yet also an FBI informant) in order to avoid the possibility of being revealed to the FBI as a "rat".
• Billy Costigan considers leaving his position as an undercover agent due to what he sees as the constant risk of being revealed as a cop and killed by Costello.

The father-son relationship is a heavy theme throughout the film.

• Costello acts as a father to Colin and even tells Colin that he is "like a son to him"; Colin calls Costello "Dad" whenever receiving a phone call from him. Sullivan remains so loyal to Costello that when Costello calls his girlfriend a cunt Sullivan doesn't even get mad or say anything in argument.
• Costello takes on Billy as a second son. Because the tapes were delivered to Billy at the end, we see that Costello trusted Billy (the mole) more than anyone else.
• Queenan acts as a father figure to Billy throughout the undercover process and even saves his life by risking his own.
• Madolyn reveals she is pregnant, but the paternity is unknown. Though it is explicitly shown that Billy and Madolyn had a night of passion together (while Colin and Madolyn's relationship seemed to be getting more distant), later in the film when Madolyn shows the ultrasound photo of the baby, Colin is shocked and surprised.
• The childhood photograph of Madolyn is particularly symbolic of both Billy and Colin's position towards paternity. Colin has failed to identify with a full masculine identity, and therefore fears mother-father-child intimacy. Billy is vulnerable and open, and places the picture on the wall; symbolic of his desire for a fertile relationship.

Cast

Actor	Role
Leonardo DiCaprio	Billy Costigan
Matt Damon	Colin Sullivan
Jack Nicholson	Frank Costello
Mark Wahlberg	Bryce Dignam
Martin Sheen	Oliver Queenan
Ray Winstone	Mr. French
Vera Farmiga	Madolyn Madden
Alec Baldwin	George Ellerby
Anthony Anderson	Brown
James Badge Dale	Barrigan
Robert Wahlberg	FBI Agent Joyce
David O'Hara	Fitzy

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 disparaging term used primarily in the Boston metropolitan area against upper-middle class Irish-Americans who have strayed from their working-class identity. 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 prominently in the film as a symbol of Colin Sullivan's ambition.

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."

File:Departed onset 7.jpg

Martin Scorsese and Matt Damon on the set of The Departed.

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." 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.

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 93%, the third highest on Metacritic, and the sixth highest on Yahoo! All-Time Top Movies (as determined by users). As of October 21, 2006, The Departed is also the highest-rated film of 2006 on IMDb's Top 250 at #48 , and among the highest-rated films of the decade on IMDb's "Best of the 2000s" List at #7. . However, responses from Asian audiences, especially those who have seen Infernal Affairs, seem to be generally negative.

Michael Patrick MacDonald, author of the Southie memoirs "All Souls" and "Easter Rising" wrote an Op Ed Piece for the Boston Globe 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.

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.

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.
• 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 criminal) to the British Authorities.
• 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." 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 to play Billy Costigan in this project. Coincidentally, his co-star Matt Damon took his intended role in that film.
• Robert De Niro was considered for the roles of both Frank Costello and Captain Queenan. Due to being preoccupied with directing his own film, The Good Shepherd, he had to turn both roles down.
• Scorsese and the producers wanted to shoot the film on location in Boston where the story is set, but due to economics and politics, the production chose New York City to double for Boston due to a 15% tax incentive. Six weeks were reserved for Boston with the first half in June and the second half in August. Most of the film's exterior shots are filmed in and around Boston.
• The character of Frank Costello was largely based on James "Whitey" Bulger, a real life Irish-American mobster in Boston. Matt Damon's character is also based on John Connelly, the FBI agent who tipped off Bulger for years, allowing him to evade arrest. In real life, the elderly Bulger went into hiding and is still presumed to be at large; Connelly is currently imprisoned for his role in Bulger's criminal activities. Costigan's undercover legend of being a State Trooper who joins the Irish mob is similar to the story of Richard Marinick, a former State Trooper who later joined Whitey Bulger's crime syndicate.
• The climax of the movie where Dignam fires the shots at Colin is a signature homage that filmmaker Martin Scorsese uses in reference to the 1903's 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 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.

See also

• Infernal Affairs
• Infernal Affairs II
• Infernal Affairs III

External links

• Official website of The Departed
• Unofficial fansite of The Departed
• The Departed at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Departed at Metacritic
• More About the Movie and a Review by Michael T. Bannon
• The Departed, Full Effect
• Fansite for The Departed
• The Departed at IMDb
• Film Review Xdafied.com.au