The Departed - WARNING: ENTIRE PLOT REVEALED

[alobear]

I came out of the cinema thinking that the first two and a half hours of “The Departed” were excellent, but the last five minutes completely ruined it for me.

It was intricate, very well shot and edited, brilliantly acted by a wonderful cast, and kept me slightly nervous about what was going to happen next without ever being too unpleasant to watch. Then, a series of shocking and unexpected murders in quick succession rendered most of the characters dead and the whole plot pointless.

Let me explain (and I'm going to use actor names rather than character names because that will make it less confusing).

Jack Nicholson was a gangster boss. Matt Damon was his agent inside the police force. Leonardo di Caprio was the policeman inside Jack's gang.

So, the plot revolved around Leo trying to identify Matt, and Matt trying to identify Leo, while Jack tried to continue his nefarious activities unmolested and the police tried to nail him for something that would stick.

The exploration of how Matt and Leo adapted and coped (or didn't cope) with the heavy stresses of their respective deceptions was excellent. Both actors surpassed their previous roles (that I've seen) in my opinion, and I now have a much greater respect for both of them, Leo in particular.

Jack Nicholson was Jack Nicholson, but not to the extent I had expected, and he never overshadowed anyone else or went over the top. In fact, his portrait of an ageing gangster, with many pressures and problems of his own, was extremely nuanced and very effective.

Anyway, the upshot of the plot is that Matt and Leo spent the whole film trying to hunt each other down without revealing themselves. Then, Matt eventually shot Jack in a police raid, another of Jack's agents in the police shot Leo, and Mark Wahlberg (one of the policemen 'running' Leo) shot Matt – everybody ended up dead and they all might as well not have bothered getting out of bed in the first place.

So, initially I thought, “Excellent film ruined by the ending.”

However, I've been thinking about it since (boy, have I been thinking about it since – which is another indication of how good aspects of it were), and I've realised that it was steeped in cynicism throughout, and that its message of futility was flagged up at every stage.

Cynicism first:

At one point, the FBI turned up and starting sticking their oar in where it may not have been warranted. Alec Baldwin (who headed up the Special Investigation Unit going after Jack) chortled and said, “I love the Patriot Act” (which, incidentally, I only found out about the other day when watching “Death Of A President”).

Jack had two rival mobsters killed and then told Matt (who was assigned as lead detective to the case) who to frame for the murders. Later, Alec asked him some questions about the neatness of the arrest and whether or not it needed to be investigated further. Matt said, “It's got a freaking bow on top.” Alec replied, “You really are a cop,” and let it go.

In conversation with Jack, Leo said, “All these other guys with you are murderers. And I ask myself, 'Could I be one, too? Could I kill someone?' And then I think, 'What does it matter?'”
(He actually didn't kill anybody throughout the whole film, which I was really glad about.)

Towards the end, Leo came into the police station and discussed getting his life back with Matt (who was pretending to be his superior officer). Matt said, “I'm recommending you for the Medal of Merit.” Leo looked at him with completely dead eyes and replied sarcastically, “That's like a gold star around here, right?”

Then after Matt had been an accomplice to Leo's murder and managed to come out of a messy shoot-out looking like a hero cop, he said to one of the senior policemen, “I'm recommending (Leo's character) for a Medal of Merit.” (Which actually made me feel physically sick.)

Now futility:

It was made clear early on that there was another gang of mobsters in a nearby area who would happily take over Jack's patch if Jack was removed so nothing would change if he was.

It was revealed part way through that Jack was actually a protected FBI informant so nothing the police could charge him with would stick anyway.

After 18 months of Leo working undercover to nail Jack with something, Matt just shot him in a police raid, rendering everybody's work pointless (though all the policemen seemed quite happy about the outcome).

Martin Sheen (who played the head of the undercover unit, and Leo's mentor) tried to protect and help Leo, and got horribly killed for it part way through. His deputy, Mark Wahlberg, then just walked out of the police station in digust, leaving Leo completely alone, with nobody even knowing he was a policeman at all.

Once he realised that Matt was the gang agent, instead of going to another of the senior policemen and demanding that they find Mark Wahlberg, who could verify his identity, Leo arranged to meet Matt in an abandoned building alone, in order to confront him (why do people always do this in films, when it's obviously completely idiotic?), at which point several people died, including Leo. I had invested a great deal in his character, and he was the only one I really cared about (except Martin Sheen), the climax was approaching with the merest possibility of him getting out intact – then a lift door opened and somebody off camera shot him in the head. Great.

Then, even though I didn't like Matt Damon's character, and I didn't want him to get away with it, it still would have been better for him to win than for Mark Wahlberg to turn up in his apartment at the end and shoot him in the head, too.

I discussed trends in cinema with David on the way out. We've had periods where the good guys win, we've had periods where the bad guys win but they were funny so we didn't really mind, and we've had periods where the bad guys win and it's not funny but it's clever or chilling or otherwise effective. Now, we seem to be in a period where the over-riding message is, “Life is shit, horrible things happen, people are mostly bad, nobody wins, and everything is pointless.” David pointed out that this is similar to cinema in the 1970s, which is presumably why Scorsese is back on top. As Empire said, he's not doing anything new in this film, it's just that cinema has come back round to his style again.

Anyway, in summary, the only two characters I liked got brutally murdered and nobody really achieved anything worthwhile, it was rather unpleasant in places, and it really, really depressed me. I'm afraid the clever intricacy, wonderful performances, brilliant direction and excellent editing don't really make up for that.