A Good Cast Working With A Great Story

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2007)

Within the city of Boston there's a cat and mouse game going on. Leonardo DiCaprio is Billy Costigan - a Massachussetts State Trooper who's been able to infiltrate an organized crime group led by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). At the same time, Costello has managed to get Colin Sullivan (played by Matt Damon) into an influential position in the State Force's Special Investigations Unit. The criminals know that there's a police mole in their midst, and the police know that there's a criminal mole in their midst, but no one knows their identities, and both organizations gear up to discover who's betraying them. To make things more interesting, Sullivan (the mole inside the police department) ends up assigned to the task group trying to find the mole (which is, of course, himself.) It sounds confusing, but it really isn't. The movie's quite straightforward and full of suspense over who's going to get found out first.
There are strong supporting performances from Nicholson, Martin Sheen as Queenan, who's in charge of the undercover cops, and Alec Baldwin as Ellerby, who heads up the Special Investigations Unit.
There are a couple of weaknesses in the movie. I was unimpressed with Vera Farmiga's performance as Dr. Madden, the police psychiatrist who becomes Costello's live-in girlfriend but who also develops an attachment to Costigan - without knowing what either of them are doing. Farmiga didn't strike me as believable in the role, and the character of Dr. Madden didn't strike me as very professional. I also thought the movie became unnecessarily bloody in the last twenty minutes or so, which detracted (in my opinion)from what had, to that point, been a nifty suspense movie. I must have missed something in the body of the movie, as well, because - without giving anything away - I found myself confused by the last scene, uncertain of the identity of the shooter or the reason for the shooting.
In any event, I still thought The Departed was a very entertaining film, and it certainly holds the viewers' attention for its full two and a half hours. 8/10