Film
Bristol Film Festival: The Departed
- Director
- Martin Scorsese
- Certificate
- 18
- Running Time
- 151 mins
Martin Scorsese returned to familiar territory with this tough, complex gangster movie, which uses the 2002 Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs as a springboard rather than a blueprint. The story traces the parallel careers of two Massachusetts State Police Academy graduates living secret double lives. Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is recruited by surrogate father figure Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) to infiltrate the tight-knit gang of veteran Mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, squeaky-clean whiz-kid Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) enjoys a meteoric rise through the ranks of the State Police Force’s Special Investigations Unit. But what Sullivan’s bosses don’t know is that he was recruited by Costello at the age of twelve. While it lacks the edge-of-the-seat tension of Infernal Affairs, Scorsese’s film has a riveting violent edge and psychological intensity. Although DiCaprio’s internalised angst doesn’t quite repay Scorsese’s blind faith in him, the other actors are extraordinary. Damon oozes swaggering, duplicitous ambition as Sullivan, while Nicholson keeps the mannerisms to a minimum and delivers one of his most frightening, deranged performances.
It’s back on screen to conclude Bristol Film Festival’s Undercover Cop series screened in the suitable surroundings of the former holding cell beneath the old Bridewell police station. Go here for further information and tickets.
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