Rated: MA15+
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: William Monahan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin
Running time: 149 minutes
Plot: Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) is seeking to distance himself from a questionable past as he applies to the Massachusetts State Police. He is enlisted to go undercover to penetrate the South Boston gang of savage and slightly unhinged boss Frank Costello (Nicholson). Meanwhile, Costello’s long-time protégé, Colin Sullivan (Damon), has infiltrated the ranks of the Police Special Investigations Unit. As the undercover men leak information to their superiors, both sides begin to suspect they have a rat.
With the Rolling Stones' 'Gimme Shelter' — formerly heard in GoodFellas and Casino — playing over the opening sequence of The Departed, Scorsese heralds his return to the gritty world of organised crime. This time, though, the gangsters are Irish, and South Boston is their beat.And to begin with, it seems that Scorsese's on song. The film looks magnificent, there are some laugh-out-loud lines amidst the barbarism, the supporting cast is superb, and Damon and DiCaprio carry some excellent scenes respectively as undercover gangster, Sullivan, and cop, Costigan. Nicholson, no stranger to self-parody, is relatively restrained in his brutal gang-boss rôle. Happily we're spared the kind of hammy mugging that neutered Daniel Day-Lewis's Bill 'the Butcher' Cutting in Gangs of New York. The plot set-up is complex, dark, and gruesome, and as the two rats begin to close in on one another, the atmosphere's unspeakably taut.
It's a film about truth and identity: two men pretending to be who they're not, and showing their true colours in the process. Both are shaped by their 'departed' families, and seek to define themselves through twisted relationships with questionable father-figures. Their seduction of the same woman sets the scene for a blistering showdown, but also reinforces both the parallels and the differences between them: Sullivan reveals himself to be an icy hypocrite, and Costigan a vulnerable, paternal misfit.
But the film itself seems to have its own identity crisis. It is a remake of Hong Kong hit Infernal Affairs, but Scorsese's picture sometimes feels like an immigrant trying too hard to fit in, constantly flashing the ID card of its Boston skyline, and swearing just a little too earnestly. The characters can't go five minutes without reminding us they're Oirish, complete with cultural Roman Catholicism, references to James Joyce, and Lord-of-the-Dance soundtrack.
Moreover, they sometimes seem little more than ciphers, which deadens the film's emotional impact. It's hard to believe in vicious gangsters and lascivious detectives who make quips in Latin, and cite Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sigmund Freud, and Shakespeare. More incredible still is that DiCaprio's weedy, perennially nervous Costigan ever managed to fool anyone into thinking he was no longer a cop.
Most disappointing, however, is Scorsese's now-characteristic mishandling of the third act. The love triangle fails to fire, and a poorly edited shoot-out squanders the hard-won tension, creating a near-comic spaghetti-western atmosphere. A series of plot turns and faux climaxes leave the audience guessing, but two cardinal rules are broken: if you're going to wrong-foot the viewer, the twist must (a) make sense within the logic of the film, and (b) be more satisfying than where we thought we were headed. Instead, Scorsese butchers both the plot and a cast of characters we realise we never cared that much about.
Verdict: Some good performances and a brilliant, tense build-up marred by a Grand Guignol ending.
