Good action and drama movie

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2012)

The movie The Departed focuses around the police trying to convict a well-known gangster in Boston. With corrupt police and being a very powerful gangster this becomes a large struggle for the police departments. The quality of the actors is magnificent in this film; it features Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy, Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello (gangster), Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan, Mark Wahlberg as Dignam and Martin Sheen as Queenan. In this movie Billy graduates from the police academy and is picked to work undercover as one of Frank's henchmen. Earning Frank's trust is the first task for Billy to accomplish. Billy does this basically becoming a thug, beating up people who own money to Frank. Billy reports directly to Queenan and Dignam on his findings of the illegal activities that are being done. Unknown to Billy, Frank has several police officers on his payroll including Colin who Frank helped as a child by giving him groceries for his family and promising to give him a job if he ever needed to make extra money. Billy being under tremendous stress uses drugs to help him get the undercover assignment and is required to seek the help of a female counselor Madolyn played by (Vera Farmiga) who turns out to be the girlfriend of Colin. Billy becomes sexually involved with Madolyn. Madolyn is also the source in which Billy gets his drugs. Billy starts to suspect that Frank has informants in the police department making it hard for him to trust anyone. He is constantly torn between doing the undercover work, wanting to have a regular life and his growing feeling for Madolyn. Billy gets to the point that he is almost paranoid. The action in this film usually revolves around violence. The beatings and killings that take place really do a good job of demonstrating a lot of drama. The lighting plays a big part of the film; much of the filming is inside dark rooms or bars. This helps set the tone of the activities being performed. The film angles in which some of the shooting and fight scenes are shown to enhance the action that is being portrayed. This film has a lot of the same theme as the gangster movie Goodfellas, only in a different time frame and location. The ending of this movie takes many by surprise just because it is unexpected of how all the events takes place. I will not indulge on the ending leaving that to the audiences who have not seen this movie yet. It is definitely worth seeing. The actors do an excellent job portraying their characters.