My take on the pregnancy was that Scorsese included it to provide reinforcement to Colin’s reasons for not killing Madolyn once she discovered his secret – he believes she’s carrying his child. By the time of the funeral, Colin believes that she’s the only person left who knows of his and Costello’s relationship. Something had to be done to stave off the question as to why she was still breathing.
Great flick.
I just saw it for the second time tonight, and I wonder if anyone here knows:
Why name Nicholson’s character “Frank Costello?” Frank Costello is the name of a real-life mobster, and this character apparently is unrelated to the real Costello.
It just seems confusing to use the same name…
Just saw this last night and really enjoyed it! I thought Leonardo’s performance was especially outstanding.
The envelope question I think has been covered here well enough. I’m wondering a few other things though, I’ll spoiler box them just to be safe:
(a) Why didn’t Marky-Mark get in touch with Bill/Leo to let him know that he was put on leave after his attack on Colin/Matt? You’d think that as Bill’s only remaining contact within the department, he’d want to clue him in.
(b) How did the other bad-cop know that Colin and Bill were at that abandoned building?
© I didn’t think that Psychiatrist Girl knew about Colin’s connection to Costello (as mentioned above)- how and when did that happen?
(d) Wasn’t there a shot of Bill looking at a surveillance photo of Alec Baldwin chatting with Costello? What was that about?
My memory for details isn’t great, but these things are niggling at me. They don’t interfere with my enjoyment of the movie as a whole, and certainly haven’t stopped me from recommending it to anyone who will listen.
Quickly addressing from what I remember:
spoilerNo idea. Not sure if it was possible, not sure what the procedure is, not sure if they just ignored it for the sake of making the movie work well… so not going to make something up just to answer this.
(b)I think he was just there with Fat Cop, but not completely sure in my recollection.
(c)When she opened the mail from Leo to Matt Damon and listened to the CD… that was a whole big scene, dunno that you could have missed it, but I think that’s the question you were asking…?
(d)Alec Baldwin was the FBI guy working with the department, and we know that Costello was informing the FBI on the side, so I imagine that was just more proof that Costello was informing (and thus pissed off Matt Damon all the more)[/spoiler]
Anybody here get the feeling that Matt Damon’s character was a closeted homosexual? There are several things that suggested that to me, and it fits in with the overall theme of the movie. I’m thinking it was originally a subplot that was left on the cutting room floor, or dropped from the final draft of the script.
Kiros - thanks. A bit of explanation:
© - I misread the earlier post and thought the writer meant that Psychiatrist Girl knew about Costello BEFORE the CD was received.
(d) - For some reason I thought that Alec Baldwin was with the police department, not the FBI - I guess I missed the explanation of his role.
Saw it tonight, and thought it was excellent too. It was a 4:45pm show that was sold out in the largest theater in the multiplex, and there was a roped-off line of people waiting to get in when we got out. I’d like to see it make lots of money and become a popular hit. What a cast!
I have two questions:
[spoiler]
Why the hell are people surprised that Leo DiCaprio is a good actor? He’s always been a good actor! And btw, he was a real badass in The Basketball Diaries.
What will it take for people to quit calling Mark Wahlberg “Marky Mark”? Damn that’s annoying. Maybe that’s because I never knew who the guy was until Boogie Nights so I’ve only ever known him as a good actor. Is the spelling of “Wahlberg” beyond people and it’s just easier?[/spoiler]
It’s nice seeing Ray Winstone in a Scorsese film. I’ve liked him ever since Ladybird Ladybird (thanks lissener) and Nil By Mouth.
Sorry about the spoiler box. I got carried away by the spoiler box epidmic.
–pats your hand sympathetically-- There, there Equipoise. Take two of these and
call me in the morning. 
Johnny Ecks, that’s something that did not occur to me. Mr. Baldwin’s line about having a girlfriend/wife was crude and said something about his character- but I didn’t think about it in terms of Damon’s. Now that I think back to the scenes between Damon and the psychologist ( whose name I forget ), there’s zero spark. Nothing there at all.
Yes, but I didn’t think it had much of a bearing on the action.
More “double-life” stuff, but not much you could really do with it.
When Damon’s character started with the unit investigating Nicholson, Baldwin (head of the statie’s group) introduced a character who was an FBI liaison. That was the person you saw in the surveillance photo.
I’ll have to disagree with you here. I pretty much fell in love with his character throughout the movie, so why shouldn’t she? (And I was sitting in the theater with my husband, who I’m very much in love with.) I didn’t think he was pathetic, and I thought he was just fine as a bad boy to swoon over. Also, the sex scene between Leo and the psychologist was teh hawt.
I loved this movie, and I’m generally not a huge fan of movies with a lot of violence. DiCaprio, Wahlberg, and Baldwin were my favorites.
I think part of the shrink’s attraction to Leo’s character was his obvious intelligence. It wasn’t just a “bad boy” thing but the fact that he was able to spar with her so well intellectually. That can be a huge turn on for a lot of people.
I found Madolyn’s interest in Billy Costigan completely realistic and probable. This chick’s POV below:
Madolyn fell for Colin Sullivan (Damon) because he was a successful, charming, and well-read dynamo of a cop. (she thinks he must be an ethical and dedicated crime fighter to have earned such a respected position at his age) At first Colin seemed confident and ambitious. (a man who knows what he wants, and knows how to get it) As their relationship progressed, she began to see through this facade. Sullivan hurt her feelings by refusing to display her sentimental objects when she moved in. (cold) When Costello called the apartment and disguised his voice, Madolyn caught Sullivan in a lie. (possible hole in his ethics) There was an incident of impotence. (lack of passion) Madolyn begins to have doubts about Sullivan’s character.
Billy Costigan (Leo) called Madolyn out during one of their sessions when he asked her which of her parents was an alcoholic. (intuitive) He showed up at her apartment when she was moving, picked up her childhood picture from the moving box, smiled at it fondly, then hung it back on the wall. (tender and sentimental) (Costigan) was obviously suffering some emotional torment. (moral) Madolyn said “Your vulnerability is really freaking me out right now. Is it real?” Costigan said “yes.” (she felt that he needed her and acted on the urge to comfort him) Costigan kissed her passionately, then they made The Big Love.
First impressions are not always an accurate representation of a person. If I were in Madolyn’s place, I would have been all over Billy Costigan.
I saw it Friday night - what a great overall experience. I wouldn’t be at all surprised with a bunch of Oscar noms, and not all in the technical categories.
One thing I missed due to a whispering wife:After the stuff goes down the first time at 433 Washington, one of Costello’s boys is dying. He tells Costigan that he gave him the wrong address, etc… but he wasn’t going to say anything because…? Did he say he was a cop, too?
And the nitpick I have:This is purely due to my IT based OCD - Sullivan deleted Costigan’s record from the Mass. State Police Office database? No chance in hell that a Sergeant would have the ability to delete a record like that - it shouldn’t even be an option. And if somehow he did, an organization like that would have backups on top of backups.
The way I remember is Leo is about to pull his gun on him to shoot him because the guy knew he was a mole, but the guy tells him to stop and says something like, Think! Why would I do that??? Then he died. So it was implied, not said.
Should is the operative word. Was that an organization that impressed you with its safety procedures, its devotion to proper record-keeping, or its willingness to be inspected by outsiders conceringing same?
Probably, the last person who told the cops that he would need access to their confidental undercover records to make proper back-ups left with no hearing in one ear.
So, yes, oversight, but excusable one.
Saw this yesterday.
Preferred the Hong Kong original by a pretty wide margin. Honestly, giving Scorsese the director Oscar for this would be, in my view, like Tommy Lee Jones’s Fugitive award.
Don’t get me wrong, The Departed a good movie, maybe even very good. But Andy Lau’s movie is just tight. And I thought it was thematically clearer, which paradoxically highlights the ambiguities.
Infernal Affairs has a very direct duality-of-identity motif, and shows people skipping back and forth across the black-and-white right-or-wrong line. The Departed muddles this, introducing a father-son dynamic the original doesn’t emphasize, and allowing the Nicholson character to upstage the Sheen character, upsetting the structure.
In addition, in the original, the two moles begin to lose track of themselves as the story progresses, becoming morally confused about their loyalties. This is de-emphasized in the remake. Whereas in Infernal Affairs the gangster-pretending-to-be-a-cop begins trying to put together a legitimate life because after long association with the law-enforcement world he finally grasps what’s so attractive about it, in The Departed I never got the sense that Damon was after anything but saving his own ass.
Plus, the surveillance-of-the-deal sequence in Infernal Affairs is an unbelievably suspenseful roller-coaster, whereas in The Departed it comes off as fairly limp, with a poorly staged anticlimax.
Still, it’s a good film, with a great cast, and some marvelous sequences. Just not as good as I was hoping for.
I thought this could have been emphasized more, too, in the remake. I never got the feeling Leo was anything but good as gold and Damon was a rat fink (though I loved him in the part).
Sorry to bring back a comatose thread but, after many delays, I finally saw this last night. Overall, a solid piece of work from Scorsese but I think his Goodfellas was a better organized portrait of life in organized crime.
I haven’t seen Infernal Affairs so I don’t really have a point of comparison. However, when Costigan (Leo’s character) told Costello that he thought he could do his job but didn’t want to, I almost expected the movie would end with Costigan–having his lifelines to the police severed-- taking over what was left of Costello’s empire and Sullivan–having his connection to crime cut off when Costello died–deciding to focus all his attention on rising through the ranks of the police department and eventually going into politics. Beyond that, I don’t think Costigan had any respect for Costello at all (who, as played by Nicholson, came across as a skeevy old man).
Also, I’m fairly convinced that the reason why those Chinese thugs were nabbed shortly after buying the “microchips” from Costello was because it was one of the tips he gave the FBI as an informer. Does anybody else think otherwise?