Word: coline
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...parroted thousands of times by distracted altar boys, goes like this: "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.") To Billy, and maybe Colin, the title says, "You're already dead, lads. R.I.P...
...Here the good cop is Billy Costigan (DiCaprio), a member of the Massachusetts State Police - evidently state troopers do more than set speed traps - who reports to Capt. Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), the only two people who know his true identity. The mob cop is Colin Sullivan (Damon), and his boss is gangland kingpin Frank Costello (Nicholson...
...What are the odds? The odds that Billy would commit all manner of crimes, to prove his underworld bona fides, and never get so much as an interested glance, let alone a collar, from the cops who don't know he's one of them. The odds that Colin would rise so quickly in the force, and be deemed so trustworthy that he'd be assigned to sleuth out the rat on the team - himself. The Departed adds one coincidence even the Hong Kong film didn't dare: that both men would become romantically involved with the same woman, Madolyn...
...trickery keeps a movie crowd on its toes. And because the story is so strong, Scorsese can elaborate on it without looking self-indulgent. One visual strategy: he plants X's everywhere, on the walls and in diagonal grouping of characters, to suggest the crisscrossing of Billy and Colin, and of the four lines of conflict (Billy and Colin and their respective father figures) that keep converging and colliding. Sometimes, in an obvious visual correlative, the X's are in pairs: a double cross...
...Damon has said he's pleased to be playing a bad guy, but of course he's playing a bad guy playing a good guy. (He had a similar role, of the charming swine, in The Talented Mr. Ripley.) What's true about Colin's nature is that he's the man on the rise and on the make, with a practiced smile that can impress the cops and please the ladies. When he meets Madolyn, the shrink, he suavely spouts this apercu: "Freud said the Irish were the only people who were impervious to psychoanalysis." (The "impervious...