Review of The Departed (2006) by Diego T — 17 Feb 2014

There are lots of things I didn't like about this movie, namely the entire cat-and-mouse plotline. How could neither Billy Costigan nor Collin Sullivan nor anyone else not figure out that those two are the double agents? It seemed pretty common knowledge that Collin grew up under the wing of Frank Costello and that bad shit keeps happening after Billy joins Costello's mob. Is Costello really that trustworthy and critical a thinker to believe correlation doesn't equal causation? The alliterative names are also confusing.

I'm not a fan of early-aughts Marty or Leo, but Leo isn't bad in this role. Matt Damon's face and voice are too boring to play a villain, Martin Sheen's character is pretty thankless and dies easily, and Marky Mark's character is just a dick for the sake of being a dick - hardly enough meat to develop an Oscar-worthy performance. The only female character is just there to form a slapdash love triangle, and the script doesn't even write her as a realistic psychologist.