I watched "The Departed" again after many years. A few things:
1) Jack Nicholson is way, WAY over the top in this movie. The dude is seriously chewing the scenery. Scorcese gave him way too much free rein.
1) Jack Nicholson is way, WAY over the top in this movie. The dude is seriously chewing the scenery. Scorcese gave him way too much free rein.
2) The twist that Costello (the Boston crime boss) turns out to be a protected FBI informant makes little sense to me. They explain that's why the state police could never make any charges stick, but given that they've pretty much WATCHED him murder people, that's bullshit.
Further, it seems like the feds (Alec Baldwin's guys), who are cooperating with the state police in investigating Costello, aren't aware that he's an informant. There's no way the FBI would freeze out their own people, especially when it comes to forming a task force against him.
Finally, there's the question of who Costello was ratting out. Frank tells his guy "I never gave up anyone who wasn't going down already," but that's not how informants work. Don't informants typically work to get evidence against someone higher up on the criminal food chain?
You don't get an informant to rat out his own subordinates. The feds certainly wouldn't protect him in light of all the MASSIVE criminal activity he's perpetrating in the process. I really don't get it.
If that's the case, the FBI seriously shit the bed twice in keeping its own task force in the dark. I mean, that's just nuts.
I guess there is one more thing: we never find out what happens to the stolen missile microprocessors. That seems like a major thread left dangling, especially since the Chinese government was lined up to buy them and that could kind of sort of result in nuclear holocaust.
And from the time DiCaprio and Damon's characters meet, the resulting murder spree plays out like the frigging "Dear Sister" sketch.
"Dear Sister, by the time you read this, a guy will shoot Leo. Then that guy will turn out to be a second informant Costello had in the police, who will then be shot by Matt Damon. Another cop will arrive, and Matt will shoot him too, until he is in turn shot by Marky M-- *BLAM*
Anyway, my main impression coming off a second viewing was wow, Jack Nicholson was AWFUL in that flick. I'll chalk it up to poor casting.
