The Departed, 2006

Rated R

I thought I’d follow watching a violent movie with another incredibly violent movie that won Best Picture just the year before. (No, actually, that was not my thinking... It just so happened that our Bed & Breakfast had this movie in its collection while my hubby and I were on vacation.) We first saw this movie in the theatre when it came out and hated it (and I think we’re the only ones, after talking to a few friends). I felt sickened, violated, and offended, and that I lost two and a half hours of my life.

 

The story takes place in Boston as the police force is trying to take down the organized crime in the Irish-American community headed by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). He has had a secret informant (Matt Damon) in the state police department for a while. But now, police Captain (Martin Sheen) and Staff Sergeant (Mark Wahlberg) place a new undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) on an assignment to infiltrate Costello’s posse in order to bring him down. Word gets ‘round that there’s a rat, and both Damon and DiCaprio’s characters are each on a hunt to discover who it is before he himself is discovered. “Cover you’re a--” seems to be a major theme in this film and it’s taken to the extreme. “The Departed” is an appropriate title for this film because there certainly are a lot of them. It’s a full-blown Greek tragedy.

Apparently Boston’s full of pretty-boy cops. Seriously… DiCaprio, Damon, AND Wahlberg? We got it- you got a cast that girls wouldn’t mind seeing on the big screen, but let’s be real. And it’s hard for me to think that a police force can really be this “dirty”. It’s just too unsettling for me. They’re supposed to be the good guys not the bad ones.

People who know me know I can throw my fair share of expletives around (a horrible habit I’m trying to break), but not like these guys. Just listening to them made me uncomfortable; they throw the F word around like it’s the word “the”, among other unpleasantries. So, if cold-blooded violence, racist remarks, and obscene language doesn’t faze you, then you should be fine, but it does me, so I’ll probably not see this for a third time. It’s not that I don’t like thrillers or suspenseful movies; it’s just that I think it could have been done differently and still have been effective and entertaining.

I find it hilarious that when I looked this movie up on imdb.com, I noticed that under: “People who liked this also liked….,” there was the movie poster for “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Um, what? Because of the racism? For those of you who LOVE the latter as much as I do, know that I don’t think that’s necessarily a strong indication that you’ll enjoy “The Departed”.

This is Oscar’s first and only Best Picture winner that is a remake of a previously made foreign film (from Hong Kong in 2002). Its competition was “Babel”, “Letters from Iwo Jima”, “The Queen”, and “Little Miss Sunshine”. I’ve seen the last two films and would’ve preferred “The Queen” to win if I had to choose, but I’m not entirely enthusiastic about any of them. I take that back, I’d probably prefer the un-nominated “Blood Diamond” to win. I’d watch that again before any of these. This was the first time in Oscar history that the most-nominated film wasn’t nominated for Best Picture: “Dreamgirls” won only 2 awards from its eight nominations. I wasn’t in love with this film either as much as the rest of the nation was… I don’t know, maybe I was having a blah year.

FAVORITE SCENES:

The credits.

Any scene that didn’t involve blood.

LESSONS LEARNED:

If I wasn’t married, I might consider moving to Boston. Apparently they have nice-looking cops. (Luckily, I married a man who everyone thinks looks like Matt Damon, so I’m good.)

my husband (kind of)