The Departed (2006)

Almost everyone assumes that The Departed won Best Picture of 2006 because the Academy was trying to make up for its numerous slights of Martin Scorsese over his distinguished career. There were some fine films nominated that year, including two of my favorites: Babel and Letters from Iwo Jima. However, despite what many critics have claimed, I think The Departed does stand up to the best of Scorsese's work and it is/was as deserving of being chosen Best Picture as any of the nominees. Even if the Academy were "making up" with Scorsese, he deserves the plaudits for this film.

The story is about two rats. One of the rats is a members of the mob in Boston (so Irish, not Italian this time for Scorsese) who infiltrates the police force. The other is a police officer who infiltrates the mob. Each is in constant danger of being found out, and each is desperate to figure out and find the other. The film is an adaptation of a Hong Kong film entitled Infernal Affairs, yet the story has been successfully transferred to its Massachusetts location with all of the suspense and energy left intact.

I had never really admired Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor before this film. Yes, I know everyone has been touting his greatness for years. I just never saw it, not even in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (so you can just save your comments about that one). I thought he was too petulant and superficial in Titanic, and I was pretty bored watching him trying to compete with Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. But in The Departed, he finally revealed to me the way that his acting is internal rather than external. Perhaps I will see this when I go back and review some of his previous work, but I get it now. I understand what all the fuss is/was about.

Able support is offered by Matt Damon, who is just as good here as in the Bourne movies; Jack Nicholson, who apparently needs a strong director to keep from repeatedly playing a parody of himself in every movie; and Vera Farmiga, who makes what could be a small, thankless "woman's part" into one of the emotional centers of the film. I also liked Martin Sheen and Anthony Anderson and Alec Baldwin (who's just getting better every year). Even Mark Wahlberg, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, is good if a bit too one-note to be really that award-worthy. In fact, almost everyone is well cast, particularly the guys who play the members of the mob. They get some of the best moments and funniest lines in the movie.

In essence, this is a film about trust and betrayal. It's about vengeance and about redemption. These are, of course, great universal themes that have been written about for centuries. At times, you wonder if there is a moral code that exists within the universe of the film. There is, but it is perhaps not one that you would want to live by. As DiCaprio's Billy Costigan tells Nicholson's Costello, "I don't want to be you." To which Costello replies with one of the many Shakespearean references: "Heavy lies the crown. . . that sort of thing." The ending is a bit of a shocker, but the last half hour of the film is, frankly, a series of them. In the tradition of Shakespeare and other great literary works, perhaps a shock is just what we need to have in order to evaluate or re-evaluate our ways of thinking.