The Problem with The Departed

Fixing Martin Scorsese's biggest mistake

In 2007, Martin Scorsese finally won his first and thus far, only, Best Director Academy Award for The Departed. The movie had a good night, going on to win Best Picture along with Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. Heading into awards season the general consensus was that Marty might finally win the award that had eluded him for decades. The recognition that night was felt by many, including myself today, that it was simply Scorsese’s turn, because there was one small problem with The Departed: it’s not a great film.

Ideally, Best Picture films are supposed to stand the test of time, to be cinematic achievements combining a director’s vision with the skills of a cast and crew that can see it to reality. This of course is not always the case, lest we visit the criminal wins of Green Book (2018), The Artist (2011), The King’s Speech (2010), and god forbid Crash (2005). And these are just the films of the 21st century, and we’re not even touching films that didn’t even get nominated (ahem, Do the Right Thing).

For the awards that year, The Departed seemed to have everything going in its favor. Not only was Marty due for a win, its competition was in hindsight extremely light, facing off against Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Queen for Best Picture and Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu), Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood), The Queen (Stephen Frears), and United 93 (Paul Greengrass) standing in Scorsese’s career defining win.

Still, The Departed hardly feels like an achievement, perhaps because so many of Scorsese's own movies are far superior. While I have not seen every one of his movies, based off of my own viewings, here’s a list of Scorsese pictures that are better than The Departed: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Color of Money, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Gangs of New York, and The Wolf of Wall Street, all but the last being made before our film.

This doesn’t mean that The Departed is not an enjoyable film. Bill Simmons hails it as one of his Rewatchables. But I feel like it’s a movie by a master of his craft that I can turn on and kind of forget about. And this always bothered me, because Martin Scorsese makes GREAT films. He makes GREAT moments. The steadcam shot in Goodfellas is one of the most iconic in history. Here, watch:

So why doesn’t this Academy Award-winning film stand up? I have the answer and it might surprise you:

It’s Jack Nicholson.

Jack Nicholson is god awful in The Departed. He’s miscast and out of synch. It’s like he’s starring in another movie. In fact Jack Nicholson is the worst actor in this movie, and this movie also stars Mark Wahlberg.

I get why Nicholson was cast. At this point, Marty was throwing EVERYTHING at the viewers. For this remake of Infernal Affairs, Scorsese brought on a who’s who of Hollywood performers in big roles, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and yes, even Mark Wahlberg, who somehow acted his way into an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Of the leads, only Vera Farmiga was not well known to general audiences.

Every actor in this film is doing work. You should switch DiCaprio and Damon and still have the same movie. Vera Farmiga really shines in this movie. Sheen is terrific. Baldwin gets some great lines. And good lord in heaven Ray Winstone is just fantastic.

And then there’s Nicholson. It’s like he’s in outer space. And while his character, somewhat based on Whitey Bulger, is supposed to be intimidating with a sense of feral ferocity, Nicholson’s Frank Costello just feels clownish. It feels like Scorsese could never quite reel him in. And it’s a pity because the man who gave us Colonel Nathan R. Jesep certainly had it in him at least a few years before. Witness Nicholson below. He’s fine, I guess. I just don’t think he’s the right man for the job.

So that’s got me thinking- who was the right man for the job? I think the basic idea here is right: you need an Irish(ish) guy in his late 60s/early 70s. You need a man of a quiet, simmering, rage. The first guy I thought of nearly perfected the archetype:

Gene Hackman. He was still a name in 2006 and would’ve been about seven years older than Nicholson, so about 75. Anyone familiar with Unforgiven or Crimson Tide or any number of his films would instantly agree with his ferocity. And it might be fun to see him play against type a bit as a drug addicted crime lord. I mean just witness Hackman going toe to toe with Denzel. My goodness.

I don’t feel like like we’d have the clowniness that Nicholson gave us towards the end of the film. I think Gene is a better choice than Jack and I don’t think it’s close.

But then I thought, what if Martin Scorsese trusted his audience enough not to make Frank Costello a “name” actor and instead cast the best actor possible? Who would that be and what would that performance look like? And then Ben Affleck went and showed us a few years later exactly who should have played Frank Costello: Pete Postlethwaite.

If you don’t recognize him by name, you’d recognize him by face and by his performance. The late Pete Postlethwaite’s career included roles in films like The Last of the Mohicans, The Usual Suspects, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Amistad, and Inception. Steven Spielberg called him “the best actor in the world.”¹ And in The Town, released just four years after The Departed, Postlethwaite showed exactly why. In the film, Postlethwaite’s crime boss is a quiet menace who runs the streets of Boston, bending criminals to his will and suffering them to his bidding. He’s cruel and ruthless. Watch in this scene as he destroys Affleck’s protagonist when he comes to say he’s done:

That’s as powerful as any performance you’ll see on film. And I think the difference between The Departed being a good film and The Departed being a GREAT film. One actor. Give me Pete Postlethwaite as Frank Costello and I think The Departed might be second to only Goodfellas on Scorsese’s body of work.

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So there you have it. In only a few hours of typing, I’ve managed to improve an Academy Award-winning film. What do you think? Who would you cast, if any? And what film would you like for me to fix next? Hit me in the comments below.

Jason

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1. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/04/pete-postlethwaite-film-actor