The Departed

By now, the name Martin Scorsese is familiar and, for many, is synonymous with quality. His career is overwhelming and it would take many hours and many days to review all his filmography. Despite his recent hit in the last installment of the Oscars with The Irishman , we cannot deny the obvious and that is that Scorsese is one of those filmmakers who has created a school and whose capacity seems to know no limits.

There are many successful films that bear his signature. In addition, most of them have a common denominator: the mafia and corruption. Among all his stories, today we rescue one of the best known to the general public: Infiltrados (2006).

The film is actually a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs (2002). As often happens with remakes , many ventured to judge The Departed before its premiere, but unlike what happened with The Irishman , the film managed to sweep the Oscars and won the statuette for best film and best director among other awards. .

The city of Boston is the perfect setting for this story full of corrupt characters and dubious morals. Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson lead a luxurious cast that will form a dark triangle full of intrigue.

As the title itself indicates, Scorsese introduces us to a policeman undercover in the mafia and a gangster undercover in the police. With this premise, the police thriller is served on a platter.

Narrative keys

Collin Sullivan came into contact at an early age with Frank Costello, the leader of the Boston city mafia. Instigated by Costello, in his youth, he prepares to enter the city police force. Successfully successful, he will soon make his way as an inspector and occupy a fully relevant role in informing Costello of the police’s plans.

The other side of the coin is represented by Billy Costigan, a young man stigmatized by his family’s past who decides, like Sullivan, to enter the police force. The difference is that his stigma will prevent him from developing his career normally and he will be resigned to working as an informant and infiltrating the Costello mob.

Nobody knows that Costigan is a policeman and, while Sullivan’s professional and sentimental life seems to be smiling more and more, Costigan’s situation will begin to take its toll.

There are several vertices that unite the history of Costigan and Sullivan: the first of them is found in Costello himself, but it will not take long for a new, more sentimental link to appear : the psychiatrist Madolyn Madden. It should be noted that Madden is the only female character in the film, as is customary in Scorsese’s cinema.

The story catches us almost from the first frame, the protagonists develop their lives in an opposite way, but in parallel with Costello as the main link between them. The viewer will soon be carried away by the hectic pace of the film and its constant and intelligent dialogues.

Scorsese is a master behind the camera and makes his interpreters bring out all his virtues. The filmmaker moves the camera in such a way that it becomes a fundamental element, as if it were an omniscient narrator. The camera acts as the perfect narrator, it moves in an ingenious, agile way and in harmony with the rest of the elements that make up the narrative.

Scorsese manages to give his camera an extraordinary expressive function and, in short, he gives us a lesson in cinema. Not because it is a remake does the film cease to be original, not because it is a remake we are facing something boring or worse than the previous one. The history of the remake is almost parallel to that of the cinema itself, that of art; but unfortunately, there are not a few who get rid of the stigma.

The Departed : A Bleak Movie

Although it is extraordinarily entertaining, the truth is that The Departed shows us a bitter, raw and critical face of North America.

As we anticipated at the beginning of this article, Scorsese has a predilection for the ins and outs of the mafia and the men who compose it. However, we cannot pigeonhole such a prolific filmmaker into a single genre, since throughout his career he has tried new avenues such as Hugo’s Invention or Shutter Island .

Infiltrados , despite being a story in which the mafia is very present, is told in the key of a thriller and the viewer’s attention is perfectly studied.

Scorsese doesn’t give us a break, not even at the end. From his cinema, we can extract infinity of characters of very doubtful morals, but the filmmaker, far from making judgments, limits himself to portraying and drawing his environment and his personality. Very well outlined characters that, deep down, respond to a reality: the other side of the American way of life .

Nor can we say that Scorsese’s cinema is purely critical, but the truth is that it is a component that is usually present and, in this sense, the viewer will be in charge of making judgments.

What are the consequences of a society whose basis is none other than the power of money? The characters will fight to survive in a hostile environment, they will turn violent and they will be carried away by an excessive ambition.

In The Departed , we clearly observe the damage that stigma can cause, as in the case of Costigan, who despite being an honest young man, will be forced to function in an extremely violent environment as a result of his family past.

In reality, the three protagonists respond to forms of survival and, perhaps, the most questionable of all is Sullivan who, in turn, is also the victim of a hoax.

Thus, loyalty, betrayal, friendship and ambition make up a totally toxic web from which they will hardly be able to escape. All the characters are, in some way, victims of their condition, although their morality is totally questionable. Are the police completely honest? No, definitely not; the body is riddled with corruption and prejudice.

All of this is told at a violent and dizzying pace, accentuated by perfectly developed, even wild, dialogues. Scorsese leads us down a hostile path, through the hell of the modern city in which corruption seems to run free and dominate every corner.

The Departed will remind us of films like One of Ours or Casino , it will take our breath away and surprise us with a totally hopeless ending.