#15 - The Departed (2006)

I really wanted to see this film. Come on, it won four freaking Oscars. But after watching it... Am I the only one that doesn't really think this movie is as good as everyone says it is? I mean, it is a good movie, but I personally think it has a lot of flaws.

The plot revolves around the Irish mafia and the special investigations unit that tries to put a stop to them. The former is led by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), who trains Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) as a mole to infilrate the police; while in the latter, Sean Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) asks Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) as... surprise, a mole, to infiltate the mafia. After a while, both organizations realize they have a rat and have to find out who he is. But there is a pretty big problem there. We know who the moles are! Everyone else is trying to figure it out but we already know. At points it felt like watching a movie whose ending was spoiled at the very beginning.

"Oh, so it was you!" BORING, we knew it all along.

And that's not my biggest complaint. While the main characters are interesting (and the supporting roles or Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone are pretty enjoyable too), both sides feel somewhat... parallel. I mean, the idea of both groups thinking they are tricking the other while being tricked at the same time is clever, but we end up seeing the same thing twice, with stuff like Damon and DiCaprio's characters being rather similar, ending up having second thoughts about their mission... It gets too complicated and repetitive. I would have liked both sides to differ a little more in their course of action. Another problem is the ending. I expected more.

But don't get me wrong: there are many things to like here. The film explores a plethora of themes very gracefully. You have moral ambiguity when both characters doubt their original mission after empathizing with the opposition; identity in the form of Sullivan's "policeman" role growing on him and Costigan realizing he threw his life away with his role: and mentorship in Sullivan and Costello's relationship. And there are those fantastically executed scenes that kept me in the edge of my seat.

This comes to mind. God that hurt.

So in the end, it was Ok, but I don't know why it got so much praise. Sure, the characters are awesome (Nicholson steals the show, surprise!), the soundtrack is great and perfectly goes along with the movie, and plenty of scenes are very good: but the plot is unnecessarily convoluted and repetitive, it gives itself away and things aren't wrapped up properly. The whole film is a big "but", for every thing it does right, it does something wrong. Your enjoyment depends on how willing to overlook the latter you are, I suppose. I wasn't.