The Success of The Departed

When Martin Scorsese won both an academy award for best director of Departed as well as best picture for the movie itself, it was a defining moment at the awards. He had never won before despite his directing success, and it seemed as if he was to finally get his due.

I saw the academy awards before I had seen the movie so I half assumed that Martin had won the award of best director for the Departed mostly because he was well past due. Then the award for best picture went to The Departed as well and I began to get intrigued, maybe this was a movie I should see after all. And I am not one of those people who writes down what movies won awards and then runs down to Blockbuster to buy them all. No, I just thought that maybe this was more than just Scorsese, maybe this really was just an outstanding movie.

Now the last movie I had seen by the now happy director was the 90's movie Goodfellas. I had really enjoyed the movie but then again who knows what over a decade does to your abilities. Yet I recognized that although he was straying from New York, he would not be straying from the mafia connection. In Goodfellas it's New York's Italian mafia, and in the Departed it's Boston's Irish. So I finally decided that it had great potential and sat down to watch the movie.

Only a few minutes in I smiled with delight, I liked this movie. Having been to Boston on a few occasions I recognized the hard accents immediately as well as the sharp Irish humor. The movie had set the mood perfectly and I could almost taste the beer in a South Boston bar. The characters opened up great as well, portraying true people who, at the end, I couldn't figure out who were good or bad. In my mind this is a great asset of any movie as it makes it so much more realistic even though I have never spent time in either the mafia or the police department.

The storyline is wonderful in adding to the movie, having not one but two or possibly even more double agents infiltrating on both sides. This turns the movie into a truly brain engaging affair as the viewer tries frantically to figure out who these people really are. Of course that's what it comes down to, that everybody is leading double lives, and there is nobody to trust. When the movie ended I had been so drawn in that I was frankly a little surprised when nobody walked in my door and shot me.