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Film review

A killer crime story

The Departed keeps viewers wondering with its complex plot and twists, but it leaves no doubt that director Martin Scorsese is the undisputed king of on-screen illegality.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published October 5, 2006

[Times photo: Warner Bros.]

Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon, right) warns Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) that he is taking too many chances in Martin Scorsese’s riveting crime drama The Departed.

Each time Martin Scorsese tries to go straight, his instincts pull him back into the mob milieu he crafts so superbly. The Departed is Scorsese's thrilling return to the criminal element that shaped his reputation, a breathless saga of bogus loyalty and a lot of bullets.

This time the mean streets are in Boston and the seething tension of two "moles" working on opposite sides of the law is different from the inner workings of organized crime Scorsese plumbed before. If he's returning to the scene of his crime triumphs - Goodfellas, Casino, Mean Streets - Scorsese won't be accused of repeating himself.

If anything, The Departed shares much with Clint Eastwood's Mystic River: an Irish underworld contrasted with both duty-bound and corrupt policemen in a grimy waterfront cityscape. The personal dynamics aren't very similar, yet the machismo oozing from each glare and profane threat is volatile and dangerous.

Based on the Chinese thriller Infernal Affairs, The Departed always keeps viewers wondering. You can't tell the players without a scorecard, or the teams they're playing for until they're dead.

Scorsese begins with a bravura prologue so enthralling that, when the title card arrives 16 minutes into the film, it's almost distracting. In that span, beginning with frightening narration by a shadowy neighborhood fixer, we learn everything necessary to follow a serpentine trail of liars, informers and people fooled by them. Thelma Schoonmaker's picture-perfect editing makes a visual flow chart of complex histories and schemes.

Take that fixer, Frank Costello: The voice and profile are unmistakably those of Jack Nicholson, but within minutes we're watching the monster, not the actor portraying him. Frank is a man of dishonor immediately but that only scratches the surface of his duplicity. Nicholson fearlessly tears into this mad dog character, ripping away his personal charm to play someone reprehensibly racist, violent and never to be trusted.

Between atrocities, Frank sees criminal potential in little Colin Sullivan who grows up in the form of Matt Damon. Colin is enrolled in the police academy, quickly moving up the ranks while harboring a secret. He'll be Frank's informer of investigations into mob business, keeping Frank several steps ahead of being arrested.

Meanwhile, the special investigations chief Queenan Martin Sheen and staff sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) are setting up their own mole inside Frank's gang. The perfect choice is Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose father was a mobster, leading him to go another direction. Billy's background and a trumped-up jail sentence make him appealing to Frank when released.

Caught without knowing it between the two informers is Madolyn Maddon (Vera Farmiga), a police psychologist assigned to Billy as part of his parole and to Colin by flirtation. The romantic triangle among this trio is the least effective piece of William Monahan's otherwise crackling adapted screenplay.

The twists Scorsese devises are too frequent for description and occasionally we wish someone would pause for an exposition break. Any questions about who's plotting what against whom will likely be settled in the next hail of gunfire. The Departed is ruthlessly plotted to confuse and shock.

The all-star cast never disappoints, with several actors arguably doing their best work ever. That's particularly true with DiCaprio, who never appeared this convincingly tough before. Like most movie cops working undercover, he gets too close to his prey, too settled in the vices of his trade. DiCaprio makes every nervous twitch and psychotic reaction ring true. Ditto for Damon, employing his signature frat boy charm in nefarious ways.

However, the star of The Departed sits behind the camera. Scorsese may not wish to be known only as a crime dramatist, but when it's something nobody else has ever done as well, why complain? He played the Academy Awards' game with a historical epic (Gangs of New York) and a stodgy biography (The Aviator) and got nowhere near the podium. With The Departed, the legendary director may have sent them an offer that, finally, they can't refuse.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com

The Departed

Grade: A

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Corrigan

Screenplay: William Monahan, based on the 2002 film Infernal Affairs

Rating: R; harsh profanity, strong violence, drug abuse, sexual situations

Running time: 149 min.

[Last modified October 4, 2006, 12:39:57]