Review of The Departed (2006) by Mitchell B — 06 Sep 2013

The Departed I find to be a good but somewhat overrated film. Most people (especially critics) regard it as a masterpiece, but I personally do not think so. It has a great cast, great acting, and a solid story, but I have some issues with it. I am also not a fan of Martin Scorsese. The only film of his that I really like is Shutter Island. I find most of his films to be not my cup of tea (this one included).

The plot of the Departed is fairly simple. On the one hand you have Collin Sullivan (Matt Damon), who is working as a Boston police officer, but is truly working for this gangster named Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). He is a rat that is infiltrating the police force. On the other hand you have Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) who wants to be a good cop. He gets the job of going undercover as one of Costello's men and infiltrate his operation. Throughout the movie each side is trying to find the rat infiltrating their systems.

As I said the film has an excellent cast. There are many big names like DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, etc. Each of them does a great job acting wise. I also like the story and how it would play out.

However, I do have a few gripes that unfortunately bring the film down for me. One of them is the characters. This movie has a huge cast and there are only two characters I cared about are DiCaprio and Martin Sheen's characters. I liked Cardigan because it is easy to sympathize with him. Most of his family is dead and he is basically alone. On top of that most of his family was crooks or offenders. He often gets regarded as a bad person because of his family history which he does not deserve. The only person in the film who really trusted him was Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen), which is why I liked him as well.

The other characters I find to be horrible people. Martin Scorsese has a habit of making his characters unlikeable which is one reason why I do not enjoy most of his movies. Matt Damon's character, for most of the film, was a rat working for this blood-thirsty gangster, which makes him unsympathetic and unlikable. Mark Wahlberg's character, Dignam, was basically a useless character. He was an annoying prick throughout the entire film, and that is all he was. He was completely useless up until the very last scene of the film, which makes me wonder why he was even in the movie. The girlfriend of DiCaprio and Matt Damon I did not really care about either. I thought she was incredible bland.

Another thing I did not care for was the excessive amount of cussing in the film. People are dropping the F-bomb every other word it seemed. It was not just the gangsters but the cops were doing it as well. Is this how Boston police truly talk? This movie and Gone Baby Gone made me never want to visit Boston. I am not offended by swearing, but there is so much of it here that I found it hard to take the film seriously in places. Scorsese likes to put a great deal of cussing in his films and I do not know why. Does he think that doing it will make the film more adult? If anything it makes the film more childish.

Also, the ending I did not care for either. Scorsese likes to have downer endings in his films. Usually he does it not because the ending fits the story, but for the sake of having a downer ending.

Overall, the Departed is a decent film with a great cast, great acting, and a good story. If you like cop films then check it out. I just have my own issues with it. It is not really my cup of tea.