The Departed
How ironic would it be if Martin Scorsese finally won an Academy Award by remaking someone else's movie? (This isn't his first foray into remakes: he's also tackled Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence.) I've never seen Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong film on which
The Departed is based, so I don't know how much of director Andrew Lau's work carried over; but I do know a Scorsese picture when I see one, and
The Departed has Scorsese written all over it.
Shades of Goodfellas, Casino and even Mean Streets are plentiful, but the palpable presence of actual good guys—extremely conflicted, but good nonetheless—places
The Departed in league with Gangs of New York in terms of the Scorsese canon. In both films Leonardo DiCaprio plays a hero you can root for and not feel completely dirty about it afterwards; but unlike Amsterdam Vallon, whose motivation is a clear-cut case of revenge, Billy Costigan, the Massachusetts state trooper he portrays in
The Departed, is a particularly likeable fellow because he's trying to prove his worth through a job so stressful, few of us would have the stomach for it.
His job, by the way, has nothing to do with pulling over speeders on I-95. Costigan, who grew up in Boston's rough Southy district, is charged with infiltrating the Irish mob that runs the neighborhood and uncovering the syndicate's mole inside the police department. To do so, Costigan must gain the trust of kingpin Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson, feasting on the scenery in the non-hammy way only he can), who runs the outfit with ruthless efficiency and deepening paranoia. (I must have missed the explanation of why a guy named Costello runs an Irish mob, but never mind.)
Naturally, the cop who works for Costello finds out there's a police informer in the gang, but he has no idea who it is because the only two people who even know Costigan is a state trooper won't tell anyone. So the cop tries to uncover the gangster and vice versa, and as the lies and double-crosses pile up, often in the form of dead bodies, Costigan's stress level goes through the roof. He's a good kid who's just trying to get out of this mess alive, while his counterpart (Matt Damon, in a brilliant piece of clean-cut, all-American-boy casting) coolly does everything he can to keep from being exposed.
There's nary a dull moment in The Departed, and William Monahan's script sustains suspense from start to finish. A strong current of bitterness and occasional anger permeates the film in a manner not seen from Scorsese since
Taxi Driver, as though some issues have been gnawing at the typically upbeat director and one-time seminarian. He also managed to assemble one of the best casts he's ever had, and it pays off in richly nuanced performances throughout.
While gripping and darkly emotional, The Departed is far from Scorsese's best work (Raging Bull, in case you were wondering) and definitely not the best direction of the year (Clint Eastwood, Guillermo Del Toro and especially Paul Greengrass all made better films in 2006). So if he finally does come away with his first Oscar Sunday night, think of it as more of a career achievement award than recognition of greatness for this particular movie. Given how much of his filmmaking personality resides within The Departed, that'll be just fine.