RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘The Departed’: Martin Scorcese, Jack Nicholson Score in an Everybody Rats on Each Other Thriller
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- 9/11 resulted in increased instances of government entities poking their camera, spiders or recorders into the lives of anyone deemed a threat to national security. Martin (“Raging Bull,” “Good Fellas,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York,” “Taxi Driver”) Scorsese has viewers looking over their shoulders as his “in on the take” cop and mob odyssey, “The Departed,” leaves anyone with a guilty conscience.
Opening routinely as a story of two men working undercover in South Boston, Billy (Leonardo diCaprio) Costigan and Colin (Matt Damon) Sullivan each work their way through the State Police Academy. Both turn out to be a part of covert operations --- diCaprio infiltrates mob boss Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) confidantes while Damon becomes a mole inside the Boston Police Department.
And, leave it to Freud, the two have something in common -- a thing for their shrink (Vera Farmiga)!
Standing stubbornly alongside “Good Fellas” and “The Godfather,” “The Departed” has the mafia normalcy undertones catapulted by a rare rubric -- Scorsese maintaining cop and gang confrontations through high tech surveillance tactics which continually beg for someone to trip over a wire.
A well worn, slightly shabby and partially unshaven Jack Nicholson easily returns to a devilish villain, who wears posh suits while speaking about hits. Nicholson’s Costello ranks favorably with that of Don Corleone (Brando in “The Godfather”) as they both segued believably from mass murderer to “just a businessman.”
Nicholson, though, has an evil inkling missed by Brando. The latter made committee “hit” decisions, while the former does mind getting his hands bloody. He’s just so wicked with a low slightly raspy voice that demonstrates his foolhardy omnipotence that pulls devotees closer hoping a beam of his power will fall on them. Best actor candidate nomination assured.
Early on, the clanking of successful achievements batter the idealist perspective, as Scorsese pops it on the table: No one gives it to you; you have to take it. This assessment of 21st Century America clashes, as do our societal woes, with the former notions of hard work and honesty getting you a steady job, a wife and family. Now, it’s more likely to keep you flipping burgers unless you have some social networking skills.
This director has taken the most normal of atmospheres and turned it into a location of a noir-like moral jungle and battlefield. His south Boston warehouse district has the plainness of just one of many similar structures, until he adds a few addresses, arrows, and roof top conflict.
More so than before, Scorsese allows snips of sarcastically humorous dialogue to meld a character, such as one of the newly commissioned troopers telling a pretty doctor, “[I don’t need your card] I’m a detective , I’ll find you.” Or, an undercover ex-con asking the same woman, “Do cops cry to you?” But, no line evokes such reveling ominous foreshadowing as the one asking “what’s the difference between cops and criminals when you’re facing a loaded gun?”