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Besides “people who have died,” to what else might the title of The Departed have been referring?
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It seemed to me that Queenan and Dignam were telling Costigan that he wouldn’t last five years as a Statie because of his class background (“lace curtain”) and his intelligence (1,400 S.A.T. score). Is that right? Are some people considered too smart to be cops?
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Part of Costigan’s problem seemed to be that everyone around him thought that they knew everything about him. Why wasn’t Sullivan subject to that level of scrutiny? Was it realistic for him to step right out of Costello’s car on the first day of work and for no one to ever have found out about his connection?
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Costello’s recordings … Did Costigan have the only copies or had Costello’s lawyer kept copies?
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What was in the envelope that Costigan gave to Madolyn that she wrote his name on and shoved into a desk drawer?
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How did Dignam find out that Sullivan was the mole?
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How did Barrigan figure out what was going on between Costigan and Sullivan on the elevator? Why would Barrigan know about Sullivan but not vice versa?
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Apparently Sullivan (at least on one occasion) suffered from erectile dysfunction. Does that mean he couldn’t have been the father of Madolyn’s child? They never had sex successfully? I mean, obviously they did, because otherwise Sullivan wouldn’t have believed it. But if Sullivan wasn’t completely impotent, why did the movie imply so strongly that Costigan was the father?
- Sullivan was strictly from Southie. Costigan worked both sides of the class divide with his mother on the North Shore and his father in Southie. This ‘training’, plus he was unusually smart, plus his father was involved with the criminal element made him stick out like a sore thumb.
5, 6: When Costigan gave the envelope to Madolyn, didn’t he say to do something in a particular time frame if a particular thing happened to him? I can’t remember exactly. Maybe that’s why Dignam was waiting for Sullivan when it appeared things had settled down.
Ah, that’s an interesting thought. It suggests the possibility that Madolyn knew that she was helping set up Sullivan to be killed.
Here’s another:
- What was with the lady with the dog pulling the leash so that Sullivan couldn’t pet it? Had he pissed off the other people in the building? Or was it just prejudice based on his lower class origin or the fact he was just a cop?
Because at that point the entire world knew he was a rat even if they couldn’t prove it.
I think either one could have been the father, but if it’s Costigan (which I do think is strongly implied), it was another way of Sullivan getting screwed and Costigan getting justice, even though posthumously. Costigan’s bloodline lives on, but Sullivan’s doesn’t.
Would being too smart hurt his policework? No, but at the very least, it would make him stick out in the force, and he would have found it hard to fit in. Queenan and Dignam were telling him that his smarts would make him miserable as a cop, not that he couldn’t actually do the work.
Having known my share of lawyers, I’d say that there were probably at least a few more copies under lock and key in the lawyer’s office. The movie doesn’t say one way or the other.
Sullivan’s death warrant. It identified Sullivan as the rat and instructed Madolyn to go to Sergeant Dignam with the information if anything were to happen to Costigan. (Either that or Costigan told Madolyn to go to Dignam himself when giving her the envelope, I forget).
See #5
Good question. It was the one huge plot hole in the story. Then again, Costello was starting to lose it toward the end, and part of his mental collapse involved a lot of rambling, so it’s conceivable he let Sullivan’s identity slip in front of Barrigan without even knowing it.
Any other thoughts on these questions?
The first time I watched the movie, it was my impression that Sullivan was gay, but just marrying her to “look good”. It’s implied when Alec Baldwin explains that being married means you’re “not gay” and also when Costigan calls Sullivan a faggot. Maybe I’m wrong, but that was my take on it.
Also, at the funeral, when Sullivan asks about the baby, my thought was that she wasn’t pregnant anymore; either she aborted it, or she lost it due to trauma. Hmm, who knows…wish the writers explained this stuff.
I didn’t enjoy this movie. Mostly due to
the huge buildup of Jack Nicholson being the huge guy to take down that turns out to me a mole himself and gets randomly killed anyway in a non consequential way. And similarly the way other built up plot points were resolved in unsatisfactory ways.
But anyway I have a suggestion - in addition to answering these questions for this actual movie, it might be insightful to compare how these particular issues were addressed in the original movie that this one was based on. Any takers?
The most important difference to me was that Sullivan’s character doesn’t get killed at the end of Infernal Affairs. I thought this was the worst part of the remake so to me the original was a better movie. On the other hand, it sucks that they decided to remake the original, scene for scene, only to arbitrarily make the ending worse. It’s like something out of the Hays Code.
I half watched it yesterday on tv and it had been a few years since I had seen it but I had a question that I can’t remember if it was addressed in the movie.
No one knew Matt Damon was the mole until Leo figured it out towards the end. Leo did not know when he went in and did the “my name is the password” thing. But Matt deleted his profile anyway.
Why?
Even if the feds knew his identity due to Costello, Leo didn’t know anything that could implicate him personally. And Marky Mark would come back to work eventually and be able to back up Leo.
(Please forgive me if my memory is bad!)
I’d like also to say that you hear a lot of people complain about this movie, how it wasn’t as deserving as the other Scorcese movies of an Oscar. I’m not saying this was better or worse than his others, but I do think it was worthy of the praise and the Oscar. I was floored when I saw it.
This is the biggest hole in the plot, from my POV.
I don’t know if I dissected this movie to the level that you did. For me, some questions just don’t need to be answered to make the movie flow.
For example, the impression was strongly given that the baby was Costigan’s, but there was no actual “proof”. Sullivan wasn’t shocked that she was pregnant, so the idea that he was suffering from ED (vs. not being able to get it up one night) is a leap of logic that I didn’t make. And since it really wasn’t an integral part of the plot, it wasn’t very relevant **who **the father was.
I do find it interesting on what people focus on or notice and compare it to what I focus on or what annoys me. One thing that bugged me was the final scene where Dignam kills Sullivan. Clearly, he was concerned about leaving any evidence behind, and took precautions to make it less likely. So he’s wearing booties over his shoes, I believe he has gloves, etc. But he shoots Sullivan **THEN **puts his hat on. Any hair he was afraid to lose in Sullivan’s apartment and be discovered by a forensic team would have fallen out **before **he put the ski cap on. I know it’s a small, stupid point, but it bugged me.
**Kizmet’s **thought that Sullivan was gay is something that never crossed my mind, but it was an interesting thought. I’m not sure how it impacts the story in any way, though, so I don’t know if it mattered.
I’m going to have to watch this movie again. I know there were a few other things I found to be plot holes (or things that bugged me, like Dignam putting his hat on after shooting Sullivan), but off-hand I can’t remember them.
The question I have is why did none of the cops wonder how Sullivan could afford to live in that really nice apartment building on a cop’s salary. We know someone of his background living in a building like that was unusual because the real estate agent asked some questions about it at the beginning. You figured that might have raised some flags on the force.
Also the whole premise of his being a mole was predicated on the assumption that he would rise through ranks and assume an important role in the division that was investigating Costello and his gang. What if, for whatever reason, he gotten stuck at some low level position and couldn’t advance or if he had been transferred to another part of state overseeing something completely unrelated to what Costello was doing.
Still a great movie though, one of my favorites of the 2000s.
I think they were trying to make it realistic. I am an alumna of the feeder school that provides the most Criminal Justice grads in Mass. (you can see the shirts and hats in the movie! I actually remember reading an article in the campus newspaper when the moviemakers asked for some shirts and hats to use in the movie) Most of the kids in the CJ program were what we called Yah Dudes. Basicly dumb jocks.
I watched this movie again recently and was wondering some of the same questions listed above. However, I came up with a couple of new ones.
At the beginning of the movie at Costigan’s mother’s funeral they show a close up of one of the cards on flowers for her…there is one signed by Costello. Also in the scene where Collin kills Costello, Costello tells him “you were like a…” “what a son?” says Sullivan says “all the drugs, women, etc… and no sons?” Implying that he was his son. I think they both were his sons. Which is why Costello left the tapes with his lawyer to be given to Costigan. The actors DiCaprio and Damon are physically similiar to each other. They were brothers and never knew it. Only Costigan knew. As to why Dingam knew it was Sullivan…the envelope Costigan left to the woman.
Actually yes, there is a widespread belief in police circles that highly intelligent people don’t last long in police work, and people who score too high on aptitude tests are often rejected.
There have even been lawsuits over this issue- and courts have repeatedly ruled that it IS okay to reject people with very high scores, for certain jobs, at least.
Ooops to my previous comment of yesterday…CORRECTION only Costello knew they were both his sons. IMHO
My only question concerning this movie is related to the ending because I can’t understand why would Dignam kill Sullivan if Costigan had gathered all the necessary evidence to prove Sullivan was a rat, he could arrest him or something…??HELP PLS
I think that’s largely just down to a movie trope that the bad guy has to be killed in the end instead of the boring process of criminal prosecution.