The Departed

The Departed
Directed by: Martin Scorcese
Starring: Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin

Note to readers: This is not a real movie review about the cinematography/acting/film elements. If you seek something along those lines, check out the site Rotten Tomatoes. I would also like to warn you that this post is fraught with spoilers. If you really want to watch this movie, go watch it first, then read this post. Ok, maybe you can read the first two paragraphs or so. But be warned, do not watch this movie if you want to watch your typical Hollywood action flick. That was what I was expecting, but I guess I should have remembered that it was a Martin Scorcese film. If you want an action, go watch The Marine or something.

Also note, for those with more delicate ears and eyes, this movie may not be for you. The violence is rather graphic (many instances of people getting shot in the head with their brains getting splattered on the wall behind them) a couple of sexual scenes, much sexual innuendo and constant profanity. Despite these things, there were some incredibly thought provoking elements in the film.

If you like movies that give you a mindtrip, this is one HECK of a movie. Virtually nothing is as it seems, which would explain why the trailers were so blatantly obvious as to the fact that Matt Damon's charecter was the rat in the Massachusetts State Police.

The basic rundown of the story, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio play Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan (respectively). Both enter the state police after graduating from the Academy and while Sullivan climbs to the top of the ranks as a young hot shot detective relatively early on in his career, Costigan is asked to become an undercover snitch for the police, infiltrating an Irish Mafia in Boston led by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). The story escalates when both organizations find out that they have rats in their midsts and ends with a surprising twist.

But this post is not so much to comment about the story of the movie (which admittedly had some very large holes. What did the girlfriend do with the envelope that Costigan gave her? Is that the reason that Sgt. Dignam came to Sullivan's house in the end? It's not developped and I would ahve liked to see more on that) but to comment about something that I study every day in school, criminology.

I have a course right now called Policing and the Community, and one of the concerns that our readings and our lectures has brought up is the question of whether police officers fight crime, or actually create crime or blow existing crime way out of proportion in order that they can have a political agenda when budget setting time comes around. The Departed speaks to that in some amazing ways. Forget Sullivan for the moment... the informant that Costello planted in the State Police. Costigan, by infiltrating this gang, takes part in many different criminal enterprises in an attempt to flush out Costello's grand scheme of selling micro chips to a Chinese gang. As a police officer, would it not be his duty to have him arrested for those particular crimes?

You find out in the latter half of the movie that one of Costello's henchmen was an undercover Boston police officer who had been in the gang for something near 10 years. During those 10 years, did not that police officer also aid in the committing of many crimes as well?

You THEN find out immediately afterwards (even though it is hinted at earlier in the movie) that Costello himself is a protected FBI undercover informant, which then leads one to question the whole premise of what was going on, seeing as how Costello was the one to plant Sullivan as the mole in the State Police. (One could justify Costello's position in that he stopped the Chinese from getting the micro chips - he didn't actually sell them real micro chips)

It's a story fraught with police men creating crime to "fight" crime. In Costigan's case, it's understandable as he was placed for a larger investigation than the daily grind of extortion and execution that Mafias perform. In the Boston police officers case, we have no idea because we as the audience are never told exactly what he was there fore. In Costello's case, it becomes even shadier seeing as how he was the one ORDERING the mafia hits and protection money runs.

This whole movie asks us to question what rats really are meant to do? Do they feed information to the police so that the crimes can be stopped (as in Costigan's case)? Are they put in place to mitigate the crime that IS going on (as one could argue is Costello's case)?

I'm still processing this film in my mind... it really was a trip. One of those films that make you rethink everything you've been told. Even if you come to the conclusion that you previously held, at least you arrive at that conclusion after thinking about it for a little.