I skipped ahead a few years to The Departed because Nate and Ryan asked me to be on their podcast (to be recorded this weekend) Can We Still Be Friends? When the episode is ready, I'll be sure to post it. In the meantime, here are my initial thoughts on the film.
As a mob story set in Boston and involving crooked cops, The Departed is not a film I would normally pick up. Again, watching the Best Picture winners expands my experiences. I have to say that it seems like the Academy of the 1970s enjoyed a good mob story. The 1980s and 1990s didn't have any, so it wasn't until this 2006 film that the members deemed another mob story worthy of the big award. It's not that there weren't options. I checked, and Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas came out in 1990. That film was nominated for Best Picture and five other awards but only won Best Supporting Actor for Joe Pesci. The Departed delivers on the mob story: lots of drugs, violence, and cops that can't quite seem to catch the bad guy.
While the film is over two hours, it didn't feel long. Scorcese's cutting of scenes, switching because the undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the detective who's also a rat (Matt Damon) speeds up the film while also drawing parallels. Both men are nervous multiple times. DiCaprio's acting was impressive. In some scenes, I was nervous that he was going to blow his cover because of all the nonverbal cues he was showing. Besides DiCaprio and Damon, the cast is loaded with strong actors, including Jack Nicholson as the mob boss Frank Costello. Nicholson was the perfect mob boss: the right amount of evilness mixed with arrogance.
I have to say, I'm looking forward to discussing this film with Nate and Ryan. I'm really interested in hearing what they have to say about how this film explores the ideas of heroes and loneliness.
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