Perhaps the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will finally give Martin Scorcese an Oscar for Best Director. This movie, like many of his other movies, is certainly worthy of the distinction. Packed with a stellar cast and almost unrelenting tension, “The Departed” tells the story of an aging crime boss, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), and the police trying to build a case to arrest him. Costello has a mole, Detective Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), in the State Police office that is trying to catch Costello, and the office has its own mole deep within Costello’s organization in Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). Each is trying to figure out the identity of the other, while each move to make that identification runs the risk of revealing his own identity. Of course, Sullivan is in a safer position than Costigan because he faces only humiliation and a life in prison if he is discovered. Costigan, on the other hand, faces death at the hands of Costello. Scorcese gives us ample evidence that Costello is quite good at not only killing, but also inflicting pain. There is near constant suspense about the consequences of each move made by Costello, the police trying to catch him, and the two moles.
Scorcese does not show us all the details of either the police operation or Costello’s various criminal undertakings, choosing instead to spend more time on the personalities of the main characters, and the effects of being undercover on Costigan and Sullivan. Costigan, like virtually all of Costello’s henchmen, is under nearly constant suspicion. Scorcese shows us early on that Costello has no compunction about killing, and in every scene with Costello there is palpable tension over what he might do. Nicholson plays Costello with gleeful, evil, self-indulgence, and DiCaprio is convincing and sympathetic as a lost soul stuck in a horrible situation. Almost worse than the constant fear of discovery by Costello is Costigan’s inability to be honestly himself with anyone except the only two policemen who know his role as an undercover agent, and those he sees furtively and infrequently, running the risk of discovery with each contact.
Scorcese’s fondness for gangster movies has generally left me cold, but I liked this one best, I think, because it had a number of characters that I cared about. I was less interested in “Goodfellas”, widely regarded as a masterpiece by Scorcese, because I didn’t particularly want anything good to happen to any of the characters. While there are a lot of killings in “The Departed”, the violence is not exploitive or drawn out or sensationalized. Scorcese once again deserves an Oscar. Maybe this time he’ll get it.
