All the screenshots in this post were taken directly from the movie by me
Since I first saw Goodfellas a couple of years ago, I don't think I've ever come across a Martin Scorsese film that I didn't find simply brilliant (The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, The Irishman, Casino, etc.). The New York director is one of the greatest minds in the entire seventh art, and although it is generally associated with a "boring" type of cinema, the reality couldn't be further from this.
The Departed (the 2006 flick starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon) is a very particular case, since despite having Scorsese's typical style, it is characterized by being slightly more chaotic and messy than all the previous examples, something that ironically ends up playing in favor of the final result.
In The Departed we follow the story of two members of the Boston police force, on one hand there is Colin Sullivan, a young man who grew up poor but was taken in from a very early age by Frank Costello, the head of the Irish mob, who serves as a mole when he enters the Special Investigations Unit on the other hand we have Billy Costigan, a young cadet who is forced to infiltrate the mob.
In essence, The Departed exists to contrast the lives of Sullivan and Costigan in what is nothing more than a violent deconstruction of a narrative structure as old as that of the prince and the pauper, something that is masterfully interpreted by Damon and DiCaprio in what could easily be classified as one of the best performances of their careers.
When I mentioned earlier that this film was chaotic and messy, I didn't mean it in a bad way, because while it lacks the consistency and firmness of the rest of Scorsese's filmography, there is something particularly magnetic in the way the story unfolds before our eyes, the direction is rushed, the dialogues are perfectly imperfect and there are many cuts that do not serve a clear purpose within the footage.
The usual Scorsese tropes are here (the use of recurring musical pieces, Catholicism as a theme, occasional but extremely pornographic violence, etc.), but at the same time there are many refreshing elements, and, in the same way, it is gratifying to see him working together with actors of the stature of Nicholson, Damon or even Alec Baldwin, in what would be a refreshing paradigm shift.
The Departed explores identity, racism, as well as the ease with which an entire police system can be corrupted. It starts off strong and keeps it going for almost two and a half hours, closing with one of the best third acts I've seen in a long time. A work of art.
This score was taken from my letterboxd account
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