Cop, criminal... who cares?

The Departed
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Anthony Anderson, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin

I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That's what the niggers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you, you have to take it.

Against every precept of my better judgement as a critic, I feel it necessary to juxtapose (only for the purpose of comparison) this movie with another, and far more venerated classic of broadly the same genre, The Godfather, in order to bring out exactly what makes The Departed possibly one of the best and most powerful movies I have watched.

Let’s be frank and aboveboard here. I don’t particularly like The Godfather. It didn’t engross me, and after a while I even wearied of the sepia aura of the film. But I admire it, because it’s common knowledge that the movie is technically flawless. Legions of forensically-inclined critics have held it against the light to no cynical avail whatsoever. Speaking from a purely cinematographic viewpoint, it is an achievement that stands head and shoulders above peers, merely because throughout the (lengthy) span of the reel, the viewer will not, for a single moment, lose the mood that Coppola intended to inflict on his audience. If there is any prime example of maintaining the “aesthetic distance”, The Godfather is it… every single facet of the movie caters to its primary objective, which is, basically, to portray the effects of criminal society on a family (which, admittedly, is central to the operation of the society). Of course, the performances of Brando, Caan, Duvall and Pacino did help.

I believe that, in The Departed, Martin Scorsese, that acclaimed artist of vulgarities (in the most respectful way possible), has matched Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece.

Essentially, The Departed is the story of two men whose lives become, unbeknownst to them, intrinsically intertwined as a result of their hazardous occupations. They derive their identity from opposite sides of the law, and both are assigned as moles to infiltrate the other’s side; both are aware of their counterpart’s existence, but neither can uncover the other without first revealing himself. One can see the potential for complexity. Throw in Scorsese…

…and you’ve got a psychological deconstruction of such dramatic intensity that it sears, numbs, revolts and rivets at the same time. This is Scorsese at his blistering best, and what makes me compare it to The Godfather is the way in which he manages to not simply create a mood, but to imprint it. As a viewer, one is wrenched into the very core of the movie right from the outset, and kept there. To understand how exactly Scorsese managed this, an allusion to one of the central themes of the plot is important.

The movie revolves William Costigan Jr (Leo DiCaprio), a police academy graduate desperately trying to shake off the shackles of crime his family has imposed on him. On joining the Massachusetts State Police, he is requested by his superiors, cool-headed Queenan (Sheen) and foul-mouthed Dignam (Wahlberg) to penetrate the mafia racket run by Irish lord Frank Costello (Nicholson). Such a move requires him to shed his current identity (that of a policeman), placing what amounts to his legal citizenship in the hands of Queenan and Dignam, and live the life he worked so hard to renounce until he can draw up enough evidence to put Costello behind bars. He acquiesces.

Here begins the tragedy Costigan’s life quickly dissolves into. He is in constant fear of being uncovered, his real identity rests on the fate of 2 men he hardly knows, and he is forced to abide by and witness murder, brutality, debauchery, and utter moral decadence in a community that opposes all that is humane. He is living a lie that is slowly eating him out from the inside. Scorsese doesn’t allow you to forget this, not for a moment. Set against a conducive Boston backdrop, he projects the bleakness, forlornness and misery of Costigan’s life with a ferocity that is only complimented by his unflinching depiction of obscenities.

The Departed is a portrayal of labyrinthine moral profundity, built upon and building upon the viewer layers of tension that steadily screw him or her further into the plot. Apart from Billy and his depressing double-life, a number of other violently clashing dramas play out in the forms of Frank Costello, Colin Sullivan (Damon) and Madolyn Madden (Farmiga).

Costello and Sullivan share something of a father-son relationship. The mafia lord roped in Sullivan at a young age as his protégé and prospective police rat, and Sullivan grew up in appreciation of Costello’s streetwise principles and grisly, hard-edged survival nuggets (“One of us had to die. With me, it tends to be the other guy.”); a morally blindfolded, loyal product of an inescapable environmental mould. He graduates from police training, joins the MSP, and become Costello’s main informant. It turns out that Costigan is assigned his job as the police’s main informant at pretty much the same time. The involution deepens. Will the police realise they have a rat in the midst? If they do, will they assign the rat himself the task of ferreting himself out? And what about the Costello-Costigan relationship? How long will Costigan manage under his criminal identity? And so on and so forth.

Also, this is possibly the first Scorsese gangster film to go hi-tech. The plot is further convoluted, perhaps, by the prevalence of cell phones, a motif better understood on viewing.

Our last important character is Madolyn, a criminal psychoanalyst who is torn between her loyalty to Sullivan, with whom she carries on a romantic association, and her client Costigan, with whom she… does likewise, for his own good. Ah, the complexities. And this is just touching the surface, believe me.

So, in the end, what makes The Departed unquestionably worthy of every accolade, including the 4 Oscars, BAFTA nominations, 1 Golden Globe, and vast array of critics society nominations and awards it has received and its position at #39 on the IMDB Top 250 movies list? What makes the screening of The Departed an experience like no other? Sure, Scorsese’s intensity, the ensemble performance (special mention to Wahlberg, Nicholson, as always, and DiCaprio), the explosive, in-your-face screenplay, the superb editing, all that jazz. But, ultimately, what strikes you most about this movie is the question it poses to you.

Cop or criminal. When you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?