Brilliant, Gripping Crime Drama

Rating: 9/10 (27 February 2007)

The Godfather. Goodfellas. LA Confidential. Pulp Fiction. Scarface. These movies stand tall among the greatest gangster dramas ever made. Each of them features a gripping story, complex characters, and a memorable tale of intricate passion and power. The Departed will take its place among these greats and stands tall as Martin Scorcese's greatest achievement yet.
There is a rather large cast in The Departed, but if it were to be boiled down to three main protagonists, they would be Billy Costigan, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Colin Sullivan, played by Matt Damon, and Frank Costello, played by Jack Nicholson. Costello is a rich, powerful, Irish mob boss. Costigan is an undercover cop who wheedles his way into Costello's inner circle, which includes an undercover gangster working in the police department, Sullivan. The Departed follows the investigation into Costello's mob work, Sullivan's interplay with Costello, and Costigan's growing guilt and inner torture over the things he must do and see as an undercover cop.
One the The Departed finest aspects is the stellar acting from virtually every member of the all-star cast. Leonardo DiCaprio turns in one of the most impressive performances of his already impressive career. He portrays the tortured Billy Costigan to perfection. Matt Damon continues his unbroken string of masterful performances as Costello's mole in the police. Unfortunately, Jack Nicholson turns in one of the most disgustingly over-the-top performances I had seen in awhile. It looks like he's begging for an Oscar with the way he tries to come across, but all that I kept on seeing was Jack Nicholson playing himself. What could have been a deep and complex character turns into nothing more than showboating at its worst. The character he plays is complex enough, but Nicholson does not give it nearly enough justice. Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Sheen all turn in their own noteworthy performances, most of all Wahlberg, and though he doesn't get much screen time, still manages to portray his character to its full depth and potential. Alec Baldwin's role is almost funny in how close it comes to self-parody, and Martin Sheen plays the head investigator Queenan with a serious fun Character is another impressive aspect of The Departed. Every last character is fleshed out, full, complex, and detailed. The closest thing that any character comes to one-dimensional is the cop psychologist, Matt Damon's love interest. She is supposed to be this amazingly brilliant woman, but she just comes across as irrational and careless as she eagerly dives into dangerous relationships and situations right and left. Aside from her, though, the other characters are sketched out perfectly. Ellerby, Dignam, and Queenan (Baldwin, Wahlberg, and Sheen), though secondary characters, still feel like completely real people. Damon's character of Sullivan is wonderfully drawn. Costello, as I already mentioned, is almost ruined by Jack Nicholson, but he still manages to shine a bit of his complexity through the ruinous vehicle of Nicholson. Most interesting is Dicaprio's multi-dimensional Costigan, who is the most interesting and multi-faceted character I have seen in a film in a long time. He's not the typical cop who's feeling guilty over coming dangerously close to becoming a criminal. He is this and so much more and the huge complexity of his character could easily have been fumbled by a lesser actor than DiCaprio. It's beautifully pulled off, though.
The intricate interplay of characters and the complex twists and turns in the film are another hallmark of its greatness. This is not some straightforward crime drama. There will be surprises. There will be twists. But more than this, everything, all these aspects, all work together to grab us in at the outset and to never let go. The storyline is positively riveting in its intensity and uncompromising vision of the dark underworld of crime. We have seen this before in films, portrayed especially wonderfully in the films mentioned above, and The Departed is no less great or capable than those others. At two hours and twenty minutes, it doesn't even stretch its waistline or overstay its welcome. It's just the right length. Usually any movie that goes over two hours overstays its welcome plenty, but The Departed is a notable exception. It is a very clean, streamlined movie. This being said, though, it is not a perfect one.
Jack Nicholson's performance drags the whole show down more than any one aspect. If it hadn't been for him, the film could have been so much better. The character of Madolyn comes across as two clear and one-dimensional in comparison to the rest of the cast. Besides this, though, Scorcese seems preoccupied with all the horror and evil that goes on in this world, while never really focusing in on the good. He touches on it in brief tender moments between Costigan and Madolyn and Sullivan and Madolyn, but he never focuses there. Scorcese obviously prefers to show us the brutality and debauchery of this world, which is fine if that is his vision for the film. A more clean and hopeful view, though, could have helped the bleakness a little.
Fine performances have always been the hallmark of greatness in films. The cast of the Departed is one of the best to come along in a long while. (If it weren't for that darn Jack!!) Its storyline is not simplistic or overly violent for the sake of violence. Everything, every line, every action, every moment serves a purpose and serves to drive the vehicle of the film forward. The gripping, dark score does its part well in this as well. The complex and multi-faceted characters interacting and clashing on screen have been some of the most real and fleshed-out characters that I have ever seen on celluloid. True, it has its flaws, but as a gangster crime drama thriller, these days, it really has no equal.