YMMV / The Departed

• Adaptation Displacement: The film was based on the Hong Kong film The Infernal Affairs Trilogy which was commercially successful in the Sinophone world and is very well known and popular among aficionados of Hong Kong cinema. Yet on account of Global Ignorance and language inaccessibility, most viewers outside of Hong Kong and Chinese-speaking regions, are unaware of it. Likewise, thanks to the fact The Departed has a much higher-profile director and cast, the original has been Overshadowed by Awesome. Having said that, the two films do have major distinctions that separate them despite sharing the same basic plot and dramatis personae. Big Bad Frank Costello is based on real-life Boston mob figure Whitey Bulger and the film's plot also takes advantage of the unique multiple jurisdiction nature of American law enforcement as a Conflict Ball^note A feature that doesn't exist in Hong Kong at least not overtly, since the Feds in Hong Kong are the Mainland Chinese police and censorship would prevent Hong Kong film-makers from casting too critical a light on them, the uniquely changed characters of Madolyn and Dignam, mean that the films feel very different.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Costello knows Costigan is a rat. The question is whether he's too old and psychotic to care or he believes that, as he's an FBI informant and has Sullivan's help, he is untouchable anyway. The fact that after Costello's death his lawyer contacts Costigan and gives him audio tapes incriminating Sullivan strongly leads credence to this theory.
  • We briefly see Sullivan as an Altar Boy in the opening montage and hints about his sexual trouble as well as the frequent jokes about "Catholic priest as pedophiles" suggest that maybe he was molested as a child. In an interview with the French magazine, Positif^note Positif December 2006, interview by Michael Henry Wilson: "Il nous revenait de lui donner un tour d'écrou supplémentaire en imaginant, par exemple, qu'ils sont tous liés sexuellement, Billy, Matt, Madolyn et même Costello. Qui sait ce que Costello a fait à Colin enfant?", Scorsese implied that he was molested by Costello as well. The character is in fact The Woobie who is trying to make it out of the ghetto, go to Harvard and become a good guy and overcome his childhood, which means he's as much of a Tragic Hero as Costigan. Think of his final line to Costello, who Scorsese said might also have been a pedophile himself:
    Sullivan (to Costello): Is that what this is about? All that murdering, and fucking, and no sons.
  • Was Delahunt really an undercover BPD officer or was that just made up by the department in order to get the heat off of Costigan? In the DVD commentary, Scorsese treats the notion that Delahunt is a cop as a completely new idea to him and acknowledges it as a secondary interpretation of the actual events of the film.
  • Some viewers have interpreted Sullivan as being a closeted gay man. While his inability to perform sexually could just be genuine impotence, his attitude can often come across overcompensating masculinity, as he tries to demonstrate an attraction to women in non subtle ways in front of others, he's quick to demean other men by calling them gay, and given Sullivan is a serial liar, it's not impossible that he'd be lying to others and himself by acting like a straight man when he's not. His sexuality is made more interesting if you believe that Costello molested him as a child, as the trauma of such a moment could be seen as a reason for him to hide any interest in men.
  • Did Ellerby know or suspect Sullivan was the mole? Dingnam gets two weeks of paid suspension for assaulting a fellow officer, and when Sullivan says "I need those codes", Ellerby says "You want those codes." Alternately, he just felt Sullivan was too bent on nabbing Costello, out of ambition.
• Award Snub:
  • Many say that Leonardo DiCaprio should've been nominated for this instead of his work in Blood Diamond. It's been said that DiCaprio was hurt by voters not knowing whether to nominate him as a leading or supporting player, with him being up for major awards in both categories. Of course, there are some who believe the Oscars recognized the correct performance, and the nomination can be regarded as recognition for both in a way.
  • Quite a few people will say that Jack Nicholson should've been nominated in supporting either alongside or in place of Mark Wahlberg. Given Nicholson not only had the bigger, showier role, but is also the most nominated male actor in Oscar history, most viewers unaware with the movie's award history would likely assume he'd be the more likely to get nominated. Much like DiCaprio, Nicholson still managed to be recognized at many awards shows regardless.
• Awesome Music: "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" by Dropkick Murphys, and the Live In Berlin version of "Comfortably Numb" featuring Van Morrison.
• Broken Base:
  • Is this film a modern Scorsese classic? A good film but nowhere near his best? Or could it even be one of his weakest projects and undeserving of the Oscar buzz?
  • As mentioned below in Consolation Award, many people believe the film only earned the Oscar for Best Picture to compensate for Scorsese’s numerous Award Snubs before then. But considering it was a critical and commercial darling, it’s obvious there were just as many audience members who believed the movie deserved its acclaim and awards.
• Complete Monster: Francis "Frank" Costello is an Irish mob boss who controls Boston's organized crime. He uses his power to commit murders with impunity, laughing at how one of his victims fell over in flashback. In the present day, Costello has some government microprocessors stolen so he can con the Chinese government, killing his thief to cover it up. Soon after, he sends much-abused goon Colin Sullivan to infiltrate the Boston PD, threatening to have his girlfriend raped if he fails. When policeman Billy Costigan infiltrates Costello's mob, he tortures him to see if he's still a cop before sending him to torture and murder locals who don't pay their protection money. After Costello is assassinated, it's revealed that he ordered all his records given to the police upon his death, intending his entire gang to be taken down with him.
• Consolation Award: Despite its 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating, 86/100 Metacritic rating, and placing second of Scorsese's films on the IMDb Top 250 (in the top 50), as well as being the highest ranked film of 2006, there are critics who believe the Academy Awards it received for Best Picture and Best Director were make-up calls for Scorsese's previous more deserving work having been snubbed at the Oscars. Oddly, it's rare to find a comment suggesting this that specifically advocates any of the other nominees (with the arguable exception of The Prestige, which failed to get a Best Picture nomination, though even that film's director, Christopher Nolan said that Scorsese would have been a deserving winner whether or not The Prestige was nominated). A handful of commenters posited that Babel was a worthier candidate.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Costello commenting that the woman of a couple he just had executed fell funny? Dark. The hitman who killed them telling Frank he needs help? Hilarious.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mark Wahlberg as Dignam. His hot blooded attitude, witty remarks, and colorful language make him one of the film's most memorable characters, and Wahlberg managed to snag the movie's only Oscar nod for acting.
• He Really Can Act: The movie often serves as a reminder that Mark Wahlberg really can, particularly after some memetic line deliveries in The Fighter and The Happening.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In 2018, Whitey Bulger, the inspiration for Frank Costello, was killed in prison due to his history of informing for the FBI. And Bulger's death wasn't quick either - his eye had been gouged out and his tongue had been severed.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Matt Damon is currently attached to star in a Whitey Bulger Biopic that will be directed by Ben Affleck, although the film ended up in Development Hell.
  • In 2016, Matt Damon starred with his The Infernal Affairs Trilogy counterpart Andy Lau in The Great Wall.
  • Mark Wahlberg's character has his famous line, "I'm the guy who does his job; you must be the other guy." Years later, he'd play alongside Will Ferrell as a team of half-witted cops in The Other Guys.
  • In Frank Costello's racist opening narration, he compares black Americans negatively with Irish Americans: "Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That's what the niggers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it." Two years after this movie came out, Barack Obama was elected the first black president of the United States, making Costello's comparison very short-sighted and outdated.
• It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: The last time a gangster movie or crime drama won Best Picture was in 1974 for The Godfather Part II, and that film was a hybrid of gangster movie with period drama/family drama and Historical Fiction, as opposed to a violent contemporary set film with several times the amount of profanity in all three Godfather films combined. Scorsese noted that he was surprised that this film won Best Picture.
• Love to Hate: Frank Costello is quite the heinous gangster, but he's just too entertaining to truly hate.
• Magnificent Bastard: Sean Dignam is the foul-mouthed, abrasive, and cunning Sergeant of Boston's Special Investigations Unit. Heading up a variety of undercover ops with Captain Queenan, Dignam quickly and efficiently dresses down new recruit Billy Costigan and turns him into an undercover operative with a highly-developed facade. Using Costigan to gather all kinds of info on Frank Costello, Dignam keeps Costigan in line by threatening to erase his police file and leave him out in the cold. After Queenan and Costigan's deaths thanks to corrupt cop Colin Sullivan, Dignam uses his own deduction skills to sus out Sullivan as a traitor, and ends the film by ambushing and executing him just when Sullivan thinks he has gotten away with everything.
• Memetic Mutation: Thanks to this film, many people's first response to hearing someone ask for cranberry juice is "What is it, your period?"
  • Bily's reaction is also a popular gif.
• Narm: Costello imitating an actual rat at one point comes off as too over-the-top, even for Jack Nicholson. The fact he's staring directly into the camera at the audience makes the moment even more jarring.
  • Speaking of rats, even people who love this film will often say that the final shot of a rat is just too on the nose to take seriously.
• Narm Charm:
  • Alec Baldwin is tremendously over the top in his usual way but is all the more funny and enjoyable because of it.
  • Nicholson's performance. His unbelievable acting is completely hilarious, but it serves to make him so entertaining that the audience is forced to root for both him and the police.
    • Going along with that, while Costello's rat imitation is unbelievably hammy, many do find it to be a legitimately funny moment. Helps that Nicholson seems to be going for intentional laughs there.
  • The rat has been called out for beating the audience over the head with symbolism, but you'll still find people who defend it and think it was a nice touch.
• Older Than They Think: The song "I'm Shipping up to Boston" is actually a cover of an unrecorded lyric by Woody Guthrie.
• Retroactive Recognition: Vera Farmiga was still unknown when she played Madolyn and it wasn't until Up in the Air three years later that she truly became a mainstream Hollywood star.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: There's really no reason for both male leads to hook up with the psychiatrist, other than to have some kissing in the movie. It's distractingly-pointless towards the movie as a whole. Unless you read into the scene where she tells Sullivan she's pregnant and Costigan is actually the father, especially since she and the baby lives while Sullivan and Costigan don't.
• Shocking Moments: Billy Costigan’s immensely surprising and anticlimactic death by headshot might legitimately be one of the most shocking moments in modern cinematic history. Even more so as the original scene in Infernal Affairs plays it much more dramatically with slow motion, rather than just coming right the hell out of nowhere.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • When Costigan is on the walkway at the airport and talking to Dignam on the phone, one shot shows what are clearly Northwest Airlines and United Airlines aircraft in the background. This narrows down the time period because the United planes are painted dark gray, when today they are painted white, while the Northwest plane bears a paint scheme that lasted from 2004 until the airline merged with Delta in 2010.
  • The preponderance of flip phones in the movie also dates it, since flip phones have mostly vanished by the 2010s in favor of single-screen smartphones.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Ray Winstone's utterly bizarre and geographically schizophrenic attempt at mimicking his co-stars Bostonian accent. In the words of Esquire UK; "[Winston's] accent does an accent that manages to switch violently between Louisiana, via Boston, back to Essex, stopping in briefly at some unknown corner of Ireland." One seriously wonders if his character is even meant to be from North America.
• Writer-Induced Fanon: The idea that Sullivan was molested as a child by Pedophile Priest and possibly Costello is one Scorsese has discussed in interviews. The film does suggest and imply it but it's not stated overtly.

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