Martin Scorsese
The Departed

"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me".

"No one gives you anything: you have to take it".

"The Departed" is a splendid thriller-mafia-movie that earned director Martin Scorsese the long-awaited coveted trophy: the Oscar for Best Picture in 2007.

At the center of the film, set in a bright and contemporary Boston where everything seems to be running smoothly, is the dark power, the deformed wisdom of the mafia under the guise of Jack Nicholson/Costello. It's distressing to discover that the criminal structure is as efficient as the system, with its hierarchy, rules, and "academy" that nurtures the young Damon/Sullivan into a shield pawn to be infiltrated where needed. Just like the police, which produces mole men, overturning their lives to have a sort of infiltrated eye, which in the end will prove absurdly useless. Mafia system more efficient than police system. Crime and corruption reign unchecked, the police target big fish, prepare endless indictments, while meanwhile, small fish act freely without much disturbance.

DiCaprio/Costigan grew up confined between two opposing parental realities (mother from a good environment, father not so much), forcing him to turn into an individual with a split personality. The state police would represent a new starting point, but unfortunately, he is haunted by the criminal past of some relatives "I know exactly who you are, I know your family" (his surname is like a cross in the city of Boston) and a presumably facade aggressive attitude. The local state police captain proposes as the only possibility, to serve the state, to continue playing a double game "You've already pretended to be a Costigan", to capture a mafia boss (Nicholson) by infiltrating his activities. Costigan finds himself not knowing who he is anymore, and by the end of his personal story, several months in, he will only wish to get his life back.

Damon/Sullivan was raised by the attention of boss Costello and is his faithful ally who, after brilliantly passing the academy, sets out on a promising career in the state police ranks and is a perfect and unsuspecting infiltrator, thanks to his impeccable background. He has a clear need for stability and comforts himself with a gigantic apartment that must contain his ego and his "prey" female to build a future with. The two protagonists will be hunting each other throughout the film, under pressure from their respective "leaders".

Behind appearances and double games lies the indictment of a rotten and unprepared system. A system made of deceptions and paradoxical loopholes. The boss mocks the captain and sergeant face to face without either being able to arrest him, and while DiCaprio is at the limit of his psychological capacity, living in fear of being discovered, he cries scandal wondering how it's not possible to capture Costello, who is showered with thousands of fresh evidence and old charges. But there is continuous tension that runs through the two characters, suspended between deceit and their faltering private lives. The knots come to a head in a nonsensical deranged and hysterical entanglement that involves everyone, from the first to the last, and those who must pay will pay. Everyone will have to reckon with the artificial world, the double-dealings, and suspended situations, to then evaluate reality with its brutal consequences. All certainties will crumble in a paradoxical atmosphere of undecipherability.

A very violent film, marked by growing tension, you lose count of the funerals, with a chilling and suffocating ending. Death ends up annihilating everything. Complete clean slate. Nothing will remain. Only the sense of an absurd feud made of endless vendettas and reprisals. A tearing sense of emptiness, a demotivating abandonment, and an infinite solitude that accompanies to the end of the line.

Amazing Jack Nicholson, good Di Caprio, mediocre Damon, decent Martin Sheen, robust Baldwin. Stunning Mark Wahlberg, set in the role of an aggressive tough sergeant who knows how to solve issues in his own way.

A film for strong stomachs, yet another look at the mafia genre, but with the intensity, the hardness, and the bitterness of a Martin Scorsese who has reached very high levels.