The Departed is a Boston-based film about the Irish mob. The only two Scorsese-affiliated words in that sentence are “film” and “mob”; throughout its action-filled runtime, The Departed always feels like watching Scorsese in translation rather than in the vernacular. There are signature Scorsese moves, like the adrenaline-inducing needle drop for the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping up to Boston,” but overall The Departed is much more anonymous than the usual Scorsese effort.
This is a film centered on all-caps major movie STARS: aughts-era Scorsese muse Leonardo DiCaprio is here, but so are Scorsese debutants Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon (right in the middle of his Bourne plus Ocean’s trilogies) and Mark Wahlberg. These four A-listers, with their inherent charisma and their deep connections to audiences, overpower the usual directorial flourishes that Scorsese brings to his films. The Departed is Leo versus Damon more so than it is the maker of Taxi Driver and Goodfellas bringing his talents to Boston.
DiCaprio plays Billy, an undercover cop trying to infiltrate the Irish gang run by Nicholson’s Costello in the hopes of being able to pin one or two of the gang’s myriad major crimes on him. He is countered by Damon’s Colin, nominally a cop and one of the major leaders of the task force trying to take Costello down. In reality, though, Colin works for Costello as his mole on the police force. The script is an elaborate cat-and-mouse game where Billy is trying to figure out who the mole is while Colin is equally determinedly working to figure out which member of Costello’s inner circle is the undercover cop. Both men will get only one guess to correctly solve the puzzle. Standing in between both them is Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), a police psychiatrist treating both men while the two chase each other through the labyrinths of South Boston and the police bureaucracy.
It is a fun and taut affair, with the tension constantly ratcheting up in every scene, only occasionally being broken by the hilarious, profanity-filled lines Wahlberg’s Dignam gets to spout in his rare moments on screen. Still, a Scorsese fan or a cinephile watching every Scorsese film in sequence will at times struggle to find the brilliant filmmaker here. Being out of New York takes some of the poetry out of his location-scouting and outdoor shots. The twist-filled script with its man-on-man chase backbone, love story and comic relief characters, all played by very famous people, leave little room for quirky camera moves or disorienting editing techniques. Unlike with Goodfellas, for instance, The Departed is a plot-centric film rather than a character-focused one, propelling both viewer and director forward into the next scene.
This is not to dismiss Scorsese’s influence here entirely. There are some really innovative shots included in The Departed, such as the scene where Damon’s Colin is furiously texting Costello with his pre-smartphone phone still in his pocket. Most of the scenes in and around Madolyn’s office, where both Colin and Billy repeatedly nearly run into each other, are also clearly Scorsese compositions, even if they are not quite as famous (or bold) as the Taxi Driver scene where he pans away from Robert DeNiro as his character erupts into a fury. The viewer can still see that the same man has composed them.
Without spoiling it for anyone who has yet to watch The Departed, the film’s blood-spattered and twist-filled ending is another place where Scorsese is able to put his fingerprints all over the place, in contrast to the famous costume of one of the characters in this scene. The framing and the cuts allow each twist to build upon the previous one(s), increasing the anxiety of the entire climactic scene. What information – especially character identities – is revealed at what times is performed with a deft mastery that reveals Scorsese’s status as the man in charge, even with a filled-to-the-brim script and a bevy of A-list stars.
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