The Departed
Review by Fritz Esker
Fritz here. This review will be split into two parts. In the first half, I will discuss the film without going into spoilers. In the second half, I will discuss with spoilers. Don't worry, I'll give plenty of notice before I delve into spoiler territory, but I feel I must discuss plot points because the film's last thirty minutes is absoultely critical to how I view the film. Anyhoo, on with the review!
At the very least, Martin Scorcese deserves to enter any discussion of the greatest American filmmakers of the last fifty years (he's probably earned his place in the all-time discussion, too). In terms of both quality and quantity of output, he is virtually unparalleled. In this regard, his closest parallel is Steven Spielberg. Both men are quite prolific, usually making a film every 1-2 years. Amazingly, both men have managed to avoid extended rough stretches despite their frequent output. Sure, they have their clinkers (1941 and Hook for Spielberg; Cape Fear and Casino for Scorcese), but both men having been regularly making quality films for 30 years. A filmmaker like Kubrick rarely misfired, but the waits between his films were interminable. Woody Allen is prolific and frequently brilliant, but prone to lengthy slumps. Spike Lee is as prolific and at least as visually gifted as Spielberg and Scorcese, but is also prone to extended slumps and when Lee goes wrong, he goes horribly, horribly wrong (She Hate Me makes 1941, Hook, Cape Fear, and Casino all seem like candidates for AFI's 100 Greatest Films of All Time List). So, in terms of quality and quantity of output, Scorcese and Spielberg are at the top of the list. Unlike Spielberg, Scorcese has never won an Oscar, and every time Scorcese releases a new film, the question becomes "Is this the one that gets Scorcese his Oscar?" In the case of The Departed, the answer to that question is "probably not."
Don't get me wrong, The Departed is a good film and one that is well worth seeing, especially considering how disappointing this year has been for film in general. It deserves to be seen and it deserves serious, passionate discussion. Ultimately, however, it is also a supremely frustrating film because it is terrific for the first two-thirds of its running time. Indeed, during this stretch, it feels like The Departed might be another classic from Scorcese. Unfortunately, the film almost completely collapses in its final thirty minutes. It does not negate the quality of what preceded it, but it sadly makes what seemed like a classic into a film that is just good.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays William Costigan, Jr., a young man who has recently joined the police force. Many members of his father's side of the family were career criminals. Most notably, his late uncle was a trusted associate of local kingpin Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). His father, however, refused to succumb to the allure of crime and worked in an airport. Capt. Queenan (Martin Sheen) and his right hand man Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) recruit Costigan to go undercover in Costello's gang. Because of his old family connections, they think he has a chance to be trusted.
Meanwhile, Costello has Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), a man the mobster took under his wing as a youth, join the state police as a mole to tip off Costello when raids are imminent. Naturally, the men's paths seemed destined to collide, as they both become aware of the other's existence (without being able to place a name or a face to their rival). In a slightly far-fetched manner, both men even become romantically involved with the same police psychiatrist (Vera Farmiga).
There a number of tantalizing elements to The Departed. Like other excellent movies of its ilk (Donnie Brasco, Mother Night), The Departed explores how hard it is for someone to pretend to be something and not eventually become what he pretends to be. While Sullivan climbs the ladder in the police department, Costigan accompanies Costello's enforcer Mr. French (Ray Winstone) as he commits murder. Scorcese continues to be a visually dynamic director and he continues to utilize a soundtrack as well as any director in film history. Despite my problems with the way he concluded his script, screenwriter William Monahan (Kingdom of Heaven) crafts some truly memorable lines and exchanges, as well as one legitimately surprising/clever twist about halfway through.
The acting is top-notch. Because Titanic was so popular and because he then he became an object of desire for early adolescent girls throughout the country, people seem reluctant admit how good of an actor he really is. One of the bigger crimes in Oscar history is that Tom Hanks won an Oscar for his pedestrian performance as a mentally disabled man in Forrest Gump, yet DiCaprio did not win an Oscar for his far, far superior turn as a mentally disabled man in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Here, DiCaprio and Damon are the anchors of the film, and they carry their loads admirably. While only occasionally resorting to Joker-style mugging, Nicholson makes for a believable, human villan. In his best scene, he tells William how disappointed his father and even his career criminal uncle would be if they knew he was working for the mob. Without coming out and saying it, it is clear in that scene that Nicholson feels enough affection for DiCaprio's character that he wishes he would do something more with his life. The secondary roles are lalso vividly essayed by the likes of Wahlberg, Winstone, Sheen, and Alec Baldwin.
Unfortunately, these undeniable strengths are undermined by a final act that is completely unsatisfying. Look out, spoilers!
I'm dead serious - come back and read the following after you've seen the film.
Final warning, prepare to be spoiled!
Some people may disagree about my opinions on the last thirty or so minutes, but...film criticism is opinion anyway, so, take the following with a grain of salt. Anyway, after the police raid where Costello is killed, it is clear that Sullivan is content to just remain a cop and accept the accolades that follow after Costello is brought down. As I watched the scene where Damon and DiCaprio finally meet at the police station and Damon debriefs DiCaprio, I felt myself thinking that this would be a really good ending. DiCaprio says he wants nothing more than to get a life back and leave the police force. Damon leaves the office to finish paperwork clearing DiCaprio as an undercover police officer and give him his final payment. Here is where the film starts to fly off the rails. DiCaprio spots the envelope on Damon's desk that incriminates Damon as the mole. It would seem that the logical thing for DiCaprio to do would be to grab the envelope, leave the office, and present the evidence to the other officers at the station. As Damon returned, he would have the evidence in his hand that DiCaprio was an undercover cop and DiCaprio would be in the clear.
However, DiCaprio bolts from the office, tipping Damon off that he knows about him. Then, DiCaprio decides to confront Damon alone on a rooftop. True, he tips off Officer Brown (Anthony Anderson), who he knew from the police academy. But if he trusted a police officer enough to accompany him to the rooftop, why didn't he trust them in the station itself, where DiCaprio would have at the least been safe from being shot, which he eventually is by the second mole in the police force (James Badge Dale). The revelation of Mole #2 seems like a cheap, forced plot twist that serves no real dramatic or thematic purpose. It's a twist for the sake of being a twist. To have such a downer twist at the end, you better knock it out of the park (The Sixth Sense, Seven). The Departed does not, and it feels weak on many levels.
The film's concluding scenes are equally puzzling. Sgt. Dignam (the Mark Wahlberg character), who resigned after Capt. Queenan's death, shows up at Damon's apartment and kills him without a word. How did he know Damon was the mole? Granted, the two men had a fistfight when Wahlberg was infuriated that Damon ordered surveillance on the Captain, surveillance that indirectly resulted in his death. However, if Wahlberg was merely seeking vengeance for this reason, why didn't he do it sooner? Most viewers will probably assume that he somehow found out that Damon was the mole. Maybe the sealed envelope (the contents of which we never see) that DiCaprio gives the police psychiatrist to open in the event of his death explains what happened and provides contact info for the Wahlberg character. But if DiCaprio knew how to contact Wahlberg, why didn't he do it sooner? Why didn't he call him personally to enlist his aid on the rooftop? On the rooftop, DiCaprio asks Officer Brown for Wahlberg, saying he told him to bring the former Sergeant along. So, one could infer that Wahlberg put two and two together after everyone but Damon ended up dead after the rooftop confrontation and confronted him. But, if that was the case, why wasn't Wahlberg on the rooftop?
In my mind, the film should have ended shortly after the office conversation with Damon and DiCaprio. I would have liked to see DiCaprio's character get his walking papers and leave the department, perhaps to work in an airport like his father while Damon's character continued to become a bigger star in the police department. Both men, starting out with the hopes of being one thing, both end up being something else entirely. Thematically, this ending would have linked up nicely with two other films in the Scorcese canon, Taxi Driver and the criminally underrated The King of Comedy. Just as Robert DeNiro's unsavory characters in both of those films unexpectedly become celebrated by the public, so could Damon's character in The Departed. And I think DiCaprio's character returning to the anonymous blue-collar working world he sought to escape would have provided a nice arc for his character.
Sadly, instead of ending there, the film rambles on for another 30 or so minutes. Because of the numerous unexplained questions posed above, this final act simultaneously seems both too long and rushed. Too long because it submarines what would could have been a classic 120-130 minute film and too rushed because it fails to make logical sense or answer some major questions. Instead, it takes a thoughtful, character-driven film and ends it in a bland, unsatisfying bang-bang way.