Movie Review: THE DEPARTED (2006)

Tweet

RSSS

Tweet

The Departed (2006) – ****

There are many people who didn’t like the Martin Scorsese epics Gangs of New York and The Aviator. I’m not one of those people. Scorsese, with those films and his documentaries, has proven he still is the greatest director working today. He’s an auteur and for anyone who doesn’t believe that, Scorsese gives you The Departed.

It’s too early to determine where The Departed will sit in the history of film, but there is going to be a place for it. Some are calling it a return to form, but The Departed breaks new ground for the filmmaker who has been accused of going soft. He turned a popular international crime film into a work of art that he can call his own. With an uber-quotable screenplay by William Monahan, Scorsese proves he’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve.

Bill Costigan and Colin Sullivan were training to become Massachusetts State Troopers at around the same time. Both grew up in the same part of Boston, a part controlled by Irish mob boss Frank Costello. Costigan, however, only spent part of his time there. The other part of his life was in an upper-middle class neighborhood where the thick Boston accent and petty crime didn’t fit. That duel life as a child makes Costigan the perfect candidate to go undercover in Costello’s gang.

Sullivan is the immaculate one. Unlike Costigan, he doesn’t have relatives who indulged in an unseemly criminal life. He’s got a clean record, except that he’s been working for Costello since he was a kid. Neither Sullivan nor Costigan knows who the other one is, so when the state police and Costello both start looking for moles in their groups the two men’s lives are put in a vice grip. As each man edges closer to finding the other, they both seek the comfort of police psychiatrist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) who is caught in a double life of her own.

I’ve loved a lot of movies this year, but The Departed is the first film that truly blew me away.Half Nelson was an acting film with subtle, successful direction. Superman Returns a studio film at its best. The jury is still out on United 93; due to the subject matter no one could walk away from that film without being dazed. Every frame, every camera movement, every plot twist and every performance in The Departed grabbed me like a meat hook pulling a dead cow’s carcass.

There’s artistry in this film, whether it’s the encroaching background in the scene were Madolyn and Colin Sullivan have their first date or the swift 180 degree spin of the camera around the characters. The film, however, owes a debt to Thelma Shoonmaker whose editing not only emphasizes the duality of the characters, but also makes the film so smooth. I dare say, The Departed may be as close to perfect as a film can be.

Perfect, however, is a word that can describe Jack Nicholson most of all. This near septuagenarian gives a commanding performance in a film full of notable performances. His character isn’t as nuanced as DiCaprio’s or Damon’s, but that works in the actor’s favor giving him the opportunity to find Costello’s sinister core.

Farmiga, likewise, has an overwhelming power in her scenes. She doesn’t have the showy role Nicholson has, but is just as successful, if not more, in finding the perfect pitch of a character with as much a psychological punch as the leading men.

Where do DiCaprio and Damon sit in this film if the supporting characters are so brilliant? Costigan and Sullivan are the film. It often feels as if the other characters are living in these two men who make a small crime film an epic. They aren’t just part of a story; they are the dark manifestations of one of humanities most common but least attractive qualities.

To survive we sometimes have to wear two faces, be different people in different situations. InThe Departed one life begins to eat the other. When his time as an undercover cop is over, Costigan asks only for his identity back. What Costigan doesn’t know is that his battle has long been over because he had so given in to one side. Sullivan’s fate is the same. Scorsese’s masterpiece is a deeply intellectual and artistic examination of this unbalanced duality’s destructiveness. It’s also an unmissable instant classic.