The Departed

I've been a Scorsese fan for many years, but as for many people, that has waned some post-Goodfellas. Casino left a bad taste in my mouth, both for the tiresome and predictable excesses of the movie, and the actual viewing of it -- I actually saw the initial release that hit the theaters, with the original full-contact baseball-bat scene in the end, and the head-in-the-vise guy's eyeball flopping out onto his cheek. Then exiting the theater, where some douchebag was alternately consoling and cajoling his weeping daughter, who couldn't have been more than six years old, and had just watched three hours of mayhem culminating in two guys getting graphically beaten to death in a cornfield.

Gangs of New York and Aviator were okay, but still larded with a bit too much in the way of announced expectations and preconceived notions, set pieces and performances seemingly designed to coax long-due recognition from the tools at the Academy. It's always a fool's errand, but perhaps necessary to get the suits on board with anything that doesn't feature a mildly retarded high-schooler fucking a pie or two oafs looking for strange at weddings.

So it was nice to be able to go check out The Departed before getting impressions elsewhere ahead of time, and find that Scorsese has essentially returned to the Goodfellas well, both for better and worse, but mostly for the better.

(*** Caution: Mild spoilers ahead.)
Scorsese's gangster films have always been superior because of his innate understanding and desire to show the small things that make his wiseguys tick, and he both draws from and elaborates on that formula for The Departed.

The premise, adapted from the Hong Kong gangster film Infernal Affairs (which I haven't seen but will probably Netflix now), involves cops infiltrated by a mobster's mole, a mob family infiltrated by a deep-cover cop, their efforts to root out one another, and the havoc it wreaks on their lives and psyches. That the movie takes place in the backdrop of Irish mob Boston only enriches the atmosphere of the movie. Scorsese correctly recognizes and plays on some of the similarities between the Irish and the Italian experiences in the New World, and his guinea/boyo riffs are executed with style and heft.

Strong performances abound in this movie, from Jack Nicholson's scenery-eviscerating turn as mob boss Frank Costello, to Matt Damon as neighborhood-kid-turned-cop Colin Sullivan, to Leo DiCaprio's mob mole Bill Costigan. At first, it seemed strange casting two actors with such similar physical features as Damon and DiCaprio, as well as the similarity of the character names. But as the movie progresses, and the mole characters start manifesting their increasing difficulty at compartmentalizing the escalating tension and violence, the Costello/Costigan/Colin similarities make more sense. The casting similarity presents itself in a late scene, as Damon and DiCaprio descend in an elevator, silently, oddly juxtaposed and, aside from a height difference of a couple inches, appearing more than anything else as doppelgangers. The elision of identity, memory, and personality have of course been a trope of the Dickian sci-fi genre, with varying levels of success. Here it is utilized in a more visceral, worldly mode.

This would all be enough to make The Departed movie superior to the majority of gangster movies, but what makes it special is the outstanding supporting cast of Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg in particular is excellent in his role as Dignam, the ball-busting Southie sergeant who revels in his contempt for DiCaprio's river-crossing "lace-curtain motherfucker" middle-class Costigan. Whatever musical chum the Wahlberg boys cranked out in the '80s for dim-bulb teenyboppers, both Mark and Donnie have proven themselves as tough, adaptable actors in numerous roles, and Mark's authentic Southie upbringing serves him well here as Dignam. You want Oscar bait, you might actually have it there.

There are a few twists and turns, while avoiding the tacked-on "gotcha" feeling that has infested many recent movies (hello, M. Night Shyamalan). The soundtrack also returns to the Goodfellas well right from the get-go, with the strains of Gimme Shelter wafting through the scenery. Later songs are better, with some ethnic Irish rock, one of which I believe was Dropkick Murphys. And Vera Farmiga, while not bad, has a relatively passive, enabling role as the double-dealing police shrink. But she holds her own with a top-notch cast that understands, like true top-notch casts, that the project is the real star.

Maybe the biggest surprise with this movie is how fucking funny it is, in that darkly humorous way that the Irish mastered long ago, and Scorsese has successfully mined here and there over the years. The humor helps with the pacing and tempo of the narrative, and in leavening the tone, and by the end, you appreciate it as an integral part of the movie; they're not throwaway jokes. The final silent, lingering shot is a gem, and maybe the funniest scene in the entire movie. It's what separates Scorsese from the hacks -- it's a shot that would never even occur to a Michael Bay or a Renny Harlin, which may not entirely be their fault, but that's the way it is.

It's Scorsese after all, so in the end we know how most things turn out. But what has always informed his greatest works is the getting there, even when you intuitively sussed the ultimate destination, and that's what Scorsese has brought back to the table with The Departed.