What I Love and Hate About 'The Departed'

The Departed is one of the most critically acclaimed crime thrillers of the 2000s. My sister LOVES this movie, and even though I like the movie in general, I'm not that fond of it.

To me, it's just a bit overrated, and there are a bunch of flaws in the film. So, what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna do a "good-bad" for all the good and bad parts of the movie. MAJOR SPOILERS ARE AHEAD.

Good: Exciting Story

I know this is a remake of Internal Affairs, but the story is truthfully very exciting. You have this fascinating premise of a police officer infiltrating a gang and a gang member infiltrating the police, and the story is honestly quite thrilling.

There were scenes in the movie that had my heart beating out of my chest, and the journey of Sullivan and Costigan trying to find each other was well-executed.

Bad: Confusing, Rushed Ending

In the most unexpected death I've ever seen in a movie, Costigan suddenly gets shot as the elevator door opens. But who the f**k killed him?

I mean, I watched this for the first time, and I was surprised, but also EXTREMELY confused, because I just had no idea who this character was. Can you tell me the name of this character? Hell no.

Turns out, this character is Trooper Barrigan, another gang member working with the police. Well, it would have been nice to have seen this Trooper Barrigan BEFORE HE KILLED THE MAIN CHARACTER.

Now, I'm a screenwriter, and something that's very important in movies is character development. While The Departed did a good job of developing Sullivan and Costigan, it did a bad job of developing Barrigan, the man who murdered the main character.

Like, come on. Did any of us actually recognize Barrigan when he shot Costigan? It would have been really nice to give Barrigan a few extra minutes of screentime in the film before he killed Costigan, so that the "plot twist" where he's actually with the gang has more impact.

And for the ending, they go completely risk-free, with virtually everyone dying in the end (except Dignam). An ending I believe would have been MUCH better if Sullivan got away with his actions scot-free, and continued infiltrating the police with all of Costigan's damning evidence destroyed.

THAT would have been a major, impactful ending. Instead, we get an overly simple ending of just "killing everybody".

Everyone in this movie delivered an incredibly strong acting performance. We have Leonardo DiCaprio, who is definitely my favorite actor of all time, Jack Nicholson, who completely sells his role as a mob boss, and Matt Damon, who brings a lot of depth into his role.

We also have great supporting performances from Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg.

Bad: Not Enough Action

I personally don't believe that crime thrillers need to have a lot of action. But with this movie, you have the police infiltrating a gang and the gang infiltrating the police. Like I said, this is an amazing story with the potential for some exciting action scenes and shootouts.

But there isn't. A lot of the movie gets driven forward by uninteresting dialogue. In my opinion, the film could have been about a half hour shorter than it was, and it wouldn't have made a difference. Scenes filled with boring dialogue could have easily engaged me with a bit of action.

Good: The Directing

I have to hand it to Martin Scorsese. He won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Director, and I believe that this movie would not have been as good as it was had it not been for Scorsese's artistic vision, and stylistic approach when it came to directing the film.

Something you may have noticed he did was he would place an X in the frame to foreshadow a character's death.

Truly excellent.

Bad: Overall Messy Story

Now, I know the first thing I did in the article was praise the story, but I was mainly praising the premise. Overall, the story was good, but there were just a few things off with the continuity of the general story.

We have a confusing subplot about selling microprocessors to a Chinese gang, to a kind of pointless psychiatrist character portrayed by Vera Farmiga. I mean, come on—what did Madolyn actually do in the movie besides providing an unnecessary link between Costigan and Sullivan?

In short, I generally like The Departed, but it has a story that drags in some parts due to a lack of action, and a rushed ending with very little meaning behind it and corny rat symbolism.

Also, Mark Wahlberg's character was a pointless asshole.