Reviewed by Robert Metcalf (2nd take)

THE BLURRY line between cops and criminals is repeatedly crossed in The Departed, as Martin Scorsese explores the tangled web of Boston’s Irish-American criminal subculture. Jack Nicholson plays Frank Costello, a Boston crime kingpin. At the beginning of the film, Costello observes that, in his world, you can either be a cop or a criminal, but there is little difference when there’s a gun pointed at your head. And of course, throughout the film, both cops and criminals frequently have guns pointed at their heads which, in many cases, go off. It is a film governed by the realpolitik of the streets, or at least the streets as we’ve come to know them through Scorsese.


The central characters are Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and William Costigan (Leonardo Dicaprio), who both begin the film as cadets in the Massachusetts State Police. The two have approached the Police with different missions. Sullivan intends to become Costello’s man on the inside, while Costigan is escaping a conflicted life on the fringes of the criminal world. Both are equivocal characters who have operated on both sides of the line, yet Sullivan is more adept at playing the honest, ambitious cop. Damon is eerily convincing as the hollow man who presents a dutiful all-American facade while pursuing his hidden agenda. Costigan, on the other hand, retains the air of the criminal engendered by his upbringing, and so he is deployed by the State Police as an undercover man in Costello’s unit.

This arrangement is the driving force of the film, as Costigan works alongside Costello, feeding information to Police Chief Queenan (Martin Sheen) while all the time being drawn closer to Costello as Costigan wins his trust. At the same time, Sullivan provides Costello with advance notice of the Police’s every move, frustrating Queenan’s attempts to make his prized collar. As this conflict intensifies, it becomes obvious to both Costello and Queenan that they have a rat in their respective operations. To complicate matters further, Sullivan wins the affections of Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), a young Police psychologist, who eventually becomes Costigan’s confidante. Of course, as we all know, when people lie, then people get hurt, and, in this particular film, quite a lot of people get hurt. The end of the film sees the dominos fall in bloody succession as each aggrieved party seeks recourse against the others.

There is a certain amount of cop-film cliché in The Departed. Everybody is double-crossing everyone else and everybody is being tailed. It seems the city of Boston could significantly decongest its roads and subways if only people stopped tailing one another. Despite this, the high-calibre cast and brisk action rise above any potential tedium this could create.

Scorsese has produced an energetic, entertaining film that is liberally sprinkled with trademark violence. There are similarities here with Gangs of New York. That film had a slightly gaudy, vaudevillian air, which is in evidence to a lesser degree here, and is in contrast to the gritty settings of Scorsese’s earlier work. Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello is reminiscent of Butcher Bill Cutting in his Mephistophelean intensity, while DiCaprio again plays the conflicted protégé – winning the trust of the gang boss while pursuing an ulterior motive. They are both well-cast and, especially in the case of DiCaprio, successfully capture the audience’s imagination. Ultimately, this is a well acted and entertaining film and, particularly if you have enjoyed Scorsese’s films in the past, well worth seeing.