The Departed

The Departed is a 2006 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by William Monahan. It is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. The Departed stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, with Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, and Alec Baldwin in supporting roles.

The film takes place in Boston. Irish Mob boss Francis "Frank" Costello (Nicholson) plants Colin Sullivan (Damon) as a mole within the Massachusetts State Police; simultaneously, the police assign undercover state trooper William "Billy" Costigan (DiCaprio) to infiltrate Costello's crew. When both sides realize the situation, Sullivan and Costigan each attempt to discover the other's identity before they are found out. The character Colin Sullivan is loosely based on the corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, while the character Frank Costello is based on gangster Whitey Bulger.

The Departed was a critical and commercial success, and won several awards, including four Oscars at the 79th Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing; Mark Wahlberg was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Plot 

In 1970s South Boston, young Colin Sullivan is introduced to crime by Irish-American mob boss Frank Costello. By 2006, Costello has groomed him as a mole inside the Massachusetts State Police (MSP). Sullivan is accepted into its Special Investigations Unit, which targets organized crime. Before graduating from the MSP's academy, William "Billy" Costigan Jr. is recruited by Captain Queenan and Staff Sergeant Dignam to go undercover, as his family's ties to organized crime make him a perfect infiltrator. His cover story is that he is an MSP academy dropout who served time in prison on a (fake) assault charge; he subsequently joins Costello's crew.

Sullivan begins a romance with police psychiatrist Madolyn Madden. Costigan also sees her as a condition of his probation, and they begin a relationship as well. After Costello escapes a sting operation, each mole becomes aware of the other's existence. Sullivan is promoted to the State Police's Internal Investigations unit and tasked with finding the rat. Costigan follows Costello into a porn theater, where Costello gives Sullivan an envelope containing personal information on his crew members. Costigan chases Sullivan through Chinatown, but neither man sees the other's face.

Sullivan later has Queenan tailed to a meeting with Costigan on the roof of an empty building. Costello's men arrive, and Queenan makes Costigan leave to preserve his cover before confronting them alone. They drop Queenan to his death before engaging in a brief shootout with police. Crew member Delahunt subsequently dies from a gunshot wound, after telling Costigan he knew he was the informant. Television news states that Delahunt had been an undercover cop, but Costello recognizes this as a ploy to protect the real informant. With Queenan dead, a furious Dignam is ordered to take a leave of absence after a fight with Sullivan, but he resigns instead.

Using Queenan's phone, Sullivan reaches Costigan, who refuses to abort his mission. Sullivan learns from Queenan's diary that Costello is a protected FBI informant, causing him to worry about his own identity being revealed (meanwhile, Costigan also learns Costello is an FBI informant from a bank robber he is sent to brutalise). With Costigan's help, Costello is traced to a cocaine drop-off, where a gunfight erupts between the crew and the police. Most of the crew are killed. Costello, confronted by Sullivan, admits he is an FBI informant, and Sullivan kills him.

With the operation wrapped up, Costigan goes to Sullivan to restore his true identity, but he notices the envelope from Costello on Sullivan's desk, realizes he's Costello's mole and flees. Recognizing Costigan's revelation, Sullivan erases his records from the police computer system. Costigan forwards Madolyn recordings, which Costello willed to him of confidential conversations incriminating Sullivan as a mole, prompting her to abandon Sullivan.

Costigan arranges to meet Sullivan at the building where Queenan died, where he holds him at gunpoint. Trooper Brown, a friend of Costigan's from the academy, also arrives at his behest, but he has not brought Dignam as requested and instead treats him with suspicion. Trooper Barrigan from Special Investigations arrives and kills both Costigan and Brown, revealing that he was a second mole for Costello. Sullivan then kills Barrigan and frames him as the only mole.

At Costigan's funeral, Sullivan notices that Madolyn is tearful. She ignores him when he attempts to speak to her. Later, Sullivan arrives home to his apartment and is confronted by Dignam, who kills him. As he leaves, a rat traces across the balcony.

Cast 

 Leonardo DiCaprio as William "Billy" Costigan
 Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan
 Conor Donovan as young Colin
 Jack Nicholson as Francis "Frank" Costello
 Mark Wahlberg as Sgt. Sean Dignam
 Martin Sheen as Capt. Oliver Queenan
 Ray Winstone as Arnold French
 Vera Farmiga as Dr. Madolyn Madden
 Alec Baldwin as Capt. George Ellerby
 Anthony Anderson as Trooper Brown
 Kevin Corrigan as Sean Costigan
 James Badge Dale as Trooper Barrigan
 David O'Hara as Patrick "Fitzy" Fitzgibbons
 Mark Rolston as Timothy Delahunt
 Robert Wahlberg as FBI Special Agent Frank Lazio
 Kristen Dalton as Gwen
 Amanda Lynch as Carmen
 Shay Duffin as Phil
 Richard Hughes as Uncle Ed Costigan

Production 
In January 2003, Warner Bros., producer Brad Grey, and actor/producer Brad Pitt bought the rights to remake the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs (2002) from Media Asia for $1.75 million. William Monahan was secured as screenwriter, and later Martin Scorsese, who admired Monahan's script, came on board as director.

In March 2004, United Press International announced that Scorsese would be remaking Infernal Affairs and setting it in Boston, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt were slated to star. Pitt, tentatively scheduled to play Sullivan, later declined to play the role, saying a younger actor should play the part; he decided to produce the film instead. Scorsese's associate Kenneth Lonergan suggested Matt Damon, who grew up in Boston, for the part of Sullivan, and Scorsese asked Jack Nicholson to play Costello.

Nicholson wanted the film to have "something a little more" than the usual gangster film, and screenwriter Monahan came up with the idea of basing the Costello character on Irish-American gangster Whitey Bulger. This gave the screenplay an element of realism – and an element of dangerous uncertainty, because of the wide-ranging carte blanche the FBI gave Bulger in exchange for revealing information about fellow gangsters. A technical consultant on the film was Tom Duffy, who had served three decades on the Boston Police Department, particularly as an undercover detective investigating the Irish mob.

The Departed was officially greenlit by Warners in early 2005 and began shooting in the spring of 2005. Although some of the film was shot on location in Boston, for budgetary and logistical reasons many scenes, interiors in particular, were shot in locations and sets in New York City, which had tax incentives for filmmakers that Boston at the time did not.

Themes and motifs 
Film critic Stanley Kauffmann said that for The Departed, Scorsese "was apparently concerned with the idea of identity, one of the ancient themes of drama, and how it affects one’s actions, emotions, self-knowledge, even dreams." Kaufmann however did not find the theme conveyed with particular effectiveness in the film.

The father-son relationship is a motif throughout the film. Costello acts as a father figure to both Sullivan and Costigan, while Queenan acts as Costello's foil in the role of father figure. Sullivan addresses Costello as "Dad" whenever he calls to inform him of police activities.

In the final scene, a rat is seen on Sullivan's window ledge. Scorsese acknowledges that while it is not meant to be taken literally, it somewhat symbolizes the "quest for the rat" in the film and the strong sense of distrust among the characters, much like post-9/11 U.S. The window view behind the rat is a nod to gangster films like Little Caesar (1931), Scarface (1932), and White Heat (1949).

Throughout the film, Scorsese uses an "X" motif to foreshadow death in a manner similar to Howard Hawks' classic film Scarface (1932). Examples include (but are not limited to) shots of cross-beam supports in an airport walkway when Costigan is phoning Sgt. Dignam, the taped windows of the building Queenan enters before being thrown to his death, behind Costigan's head in the elevator before he is shot, and the carpeted hallway floor when Sullivan returns to his apartment before being shot by Dignam at the film's end .

Reception

Box office 
The Departed grossed $132.4 million in the United States and Canada and $159 million in other territories for a total gross of $291.5 million, against a production budget of $90 million.

The film grossed $26.9 million in its opening weekend, becoming the third Scorsese film to debut at number one. In the following three weeks the film grossed $19 million, $13.5 million and $9.8 million, finishing second at the box office each time, before grossing $7.7 million and dropping to 5th in its fifth week.

Critical response 
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 91% approval rating based on 277 reviews, with an average rating of 8.24/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Featuring outstanding work from an excellent cast, The Departed is a thoroughly engrossing gangster drama with the gritty authenticity and soupy morality we come to expect from Martin Scorsese." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100 based on 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best of" list, saying: "If they're lucky, directors make one classic film in their career. Martin Scorsese has one per decade (Taxi Driver in the '70s, Raging Bull in the '80s, Goodfellas in the '90s). His 2006 Irish Mafia masterpiece kept the streak alive."

Online critic James Berardinelli awarded the film four stars out of four, praising it as "an American epic tragedy." He went on to claim that the film deserves to be ranked alongside Scorsese's past successes, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas.

Andrew Lau, the co-director of Infernal Affairs, who was interviewed by Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, said: "Of course I think the version I made is better, but the Hollywood version is pretty good too. [Scorsese] made the Hollywood version more attuned to American culture." Andy Lau, one of the main actors in Infernal Affairs, when asked how the movie compares to the original, said: "The Departed was too long and it felt as if Hollywood had combined all three Infernal Affairs movies together." Although Lau said the script of the remake had some "golden quotes", he also felt it had a bit too much profanity. He ultimately rated The Departed 8/10 and said that the Hollywood remake is worth a view, though according to Lau's spokeswoman Alice Tam, he felt that the combination of the two female characters into one in The Departed was not as good as the original storyline.

A few critics were disappointed in the film, including J. Hoberman of the Village Voice, who wrote: "Infernal Affairs was surprisingly cool and effectively restrained for HK action, but Scorsese raises the temperature with every ultraviolent interaction. The surplus of belligerence and slur reach near-Tarantinian levels—appropriate as he’s staking a claim to QT’s turf."

Top ten lists 
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006. Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal, Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer named it one of the top ten films of 2006. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times named it the best film of the 2000s.

 1st – Richard Roeper, Ebert and Roeper
 1st – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 1st – Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald
 1st – Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club
 1st – Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
 1st – Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 1st – James Berardinelli, ReelViews
 2nd – Chris Kaltenbach, The Baltimore Sun
 2nd – Adam Kempenaar, Filmspotting
 2nd – Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club
 2nd – Kyle Smith, New York Post
 2nd – Mike Russell, The Oregonian
 2nd – Richard James Havis, The Hollywood Reporter
 2nd – Richard Schickel, TIME
 3rd – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
 4th – Glenn Kenny, Premiere
 4th – Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
 4th – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

 4th – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
 5th – Empire
 5th – David Ansen, Newsweek
 5th – Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
 5th – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
 5th – Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post
 6th – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
 6th – Jack Mathews, Daily News
 6th – Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club
 6th – Ty Burr, The Boston Globe
 7th – Nathan Lee, The Village Voice
 7th – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
 7th – Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
 8th – Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun
 9th – Claudia Puig, USA Today
 9th – Desson Thomson, The Washington Post
 9th – Lou Lumenick, New York Post
 9th – Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter

Accolades 

At the 64th Golden Globe Awards on January 15, 2007, The Departed won one award for Best Director (Martin Scorsese), while being nominated for five other awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg), and Best Screenplay (William Monahan).

At the 79th Academy Awards on February 25, 2007, The Departed won four Academy Awards: Best Picture (Graham King), Best Director (Martin Scorsese), Best Film Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker), and Best Adapted Screenplay (William Monahan). Mark Wahlberg was also nominated for the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance, but he lost to Alan Arkin for his role in Little Miss Sunshine.

The film marked the first time Scorsese won an Oscar after six previous losses. Many felt that he deserved it years earlier for prior efforts. Some have even gone further, calling it a Lifetime Achievement Award for a lesser film. Scorsese himself joked that he won because: "This is the first movie I've done with a plot." While accepting the award, Scorsese stated that "I just want to say, too, that so many people over the years have been wishing this for me, strangers, you know. I go walking in the street people say something to me, I go in a doctor's office, I go in a...whatever...elevators, people are saying, "You should win one, you should win one." I go for an x-ray, "You should win one." And I'm saying, "Thank you." And then friends of mine over the years and friends who are here tonight are wishing this for me and my family. I thank you. This is for you."

At the 11th Satellite Awards on December 18, 2006, The Departed won awards for Best Ensemble, Motion Picture, Best Motion Picture, Drama, Best Screenplay – Adapted (William Monahan), and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Leonardo DiCaprio).

In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Gangster Films list.

Home media 
The Departed was released by Warner Brothers on DVD in 2007. The film is available in a single-disc full screen (1.33:1), single-disc widescreen (2.40:1) edition, and 2-disc special edition. The second disc contains deleted scenes; a feature about the influence of New York’s Little Italy on Scorsese; a Turner Classic Movies profile; and a 21-minute documentary titled Stranger Than Fiction: The True Story of Whitey Bulger, Southie and The Departed about the crimes that influenced Scorsese in creating the film, including the story of James "Whitey" Bulger, upon whom Jack Nicholson's character is based.

The Region 1 version has three available audio tracks: English, Spanish, and French (all of which are in Dolby Digital 5.1), and three subtitle tracks (English, Spanish, French). The film was released on HD DVD and Blu-ray at the same time as the standard-definition DVD. The 2-Disc Special Edition was packaged in a Limited Edition Steelbook. It marked the first time that an Oscar-winning Best Picture was released to the home video market in DVD format only, as VHS was phased out by the start of 2006.

Music 
There were two albums released for The Departed, one presenting the original score composed for the film by Howard Shore, and the other featuring earlier recordings, mostly pop/rock songs, which were used on the soundtrack.

Soundtrack 

As with previous Scorsese films, Robbie Robertson had a hand in picking the music. The film opens with "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones ("Let It Loose" also appears later on), and prominently plays "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by Dropkick Murphys with lyrics written by Woody Guthrie, which gained the band some popularity and their first and only platinum selling single. The film features the live version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" from the 1990 Berlin Wall concert performed by Roger Waters, Van Morrison, and Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudson of The Band.

Although "Gimme Shelter" is featured twice in the film, the song does not appear on the album soundtrack. Also heard in the movie but not featured on the soundtrack is "Thief's Theme" by Nas, "Well Well Well" by John Lennon, "Bang Bang" by Joe Cuba, and the Act II Sextet from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

The film closes with a cover of Don Gibson's "Sweet Dreams", by Roy Buchanan.

Score 
The film score for The Departed was written by Howard Shore and performed by guitarists Sharon Isbin, G. E. Smith, Larry Saltzman and Marc Ribot. The score was recorded in Shore's own studio in New York State. The album, The Departed: Original Score, was released December 5, 2006 by New Line, and produced by Jason Cienkus.

Scorsese described the music as "a very dangerous and lethal tango" and cited the guitar-based score of Murder by Contract and the zither in The Third Man as inspiration.

Cancelled sequel 
Although many of the key characters in the film are deceased by the movie's end, there was a script written for a sequel. This was ultimately shelved due to the expense and Scorsese's lack of interest in creating a sequel.

See also 
 List of American films of 2006
 "The Debarted", an episode of The Simpsons that parodies the film.

Notes

Further reading

External links 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Category:2006 films
Category:2000s crime drama films
Category:2000s crime thriller films
Category:American crime drama films
Category:American crime thriller films
Category:American films
Category:American remakes of Hong Kong films
Category:American thriller drama films
Category:Best Picture Academy Award winners
Category:Best Thriller Empire Award winners
Category:Culture of Boston
Category:Edgar Award-winning works
Category:English-language films
Category:Films scored by Howard Shore
Category:Films about the Irish Mob
Category:Films directed by Martin Scorsese
Category:Films produced by Dan Lin
Category:Films set in Boston
Category:Films shot in New York City
Category:Films shot in Massachusetts
Category:Films shot in Boston
Category:Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Category:Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Category:Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Category:Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Category:Films produced by Brad Pitt
Category:Irish-American culture in Boston
Category:Media Asia films
Category:Plan B Entertainment films
Category:Police detective films
Category:Warner Bros. films
Category:Fictional portrayals of the Boston Police Department
Category:American neo-noir films
Category:Films set in 2006