Re-Viewing: “The Departed” (2006) – Sense and Simplicity

“My theory on Feds is that they're like mushrooms, feed 'em shit and keep 'em in the dark”

- Dingham

Hi there. When I Re-View movies I do just that, I watch them again. Catching things I missed the first time, and wondering why i did or didn’t like that movie as much as I did.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and Written by William Monahan. Based on “Infernal Affairs” (“Mou gaan dou” written by Alan Mak and Felix Chong)

This movie is famous for being the third coorporation between Leonardo DiCarpio and Scorsese, for showing Matt Damon with a Boston Accent again and for being the movie with the most uses of “Fuck” (237) to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

“The Departed” is a movie that is quite popular among both critics and the general audience. Even hardcore Scorsese fans will argue that even though it wasn’t his best, it got him a Best Directing Oscar, which they must have thought was overdue.

And it really is a finely constructed movie, that requires many viewings to fully grasp. With intricacies of double-crosses, triple-crosses and other cross imagery, notice how there are often visible crosses whenever a major death is about to take place. Most notably Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sullivan (Matt Damon).

But to me all this “construction” is really where the problem lies. It’s not a bad thing that a movie is meticular with it’s structure, not at all. But not really a good thing when your cleverness distracts from the movie.

As such “The Departed” ends up like more of an intellectual affair with its rapid editing, clever parrallels and juxtapositions and economically written characters.

But even after a handful viewings of this film I still have trouble following Colin Sulivans character arc. Is he a good kid who is in the wrong company but good at heart? Or is he a basterd who regrets his ways? Is he an Michael Corleone fighting destiny but ending up falling victim to it, or is he just a confused Freudian boy? I’m still not sure, and it bugs me enough to hurt the movie.

But that’s not all, if I lacked a protagonist whos motivations were clear I could just read DiCaprios Costigan as such (even though I would argue that the movie is really Sullivans story – it’s bookended by him.) there is more that just frustrates me. Even after a couple of viewings I’m still not sure who the guy who shoots Costigan at the end is. 

I’m not going to pass some sort of condemning judgement on “The Departed” because of this though, because I actually qutie enjoyed watching it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is more of an intellectual excersise than an emotional one, the latter being what most gangster movies aim for.

Here’s the trailer for “The Departed”:

And just because you didn’t ask for it, here’s the theme song by Dropkick Murphys: