*** Official The Departed Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Grey]

I think the envelope contained Costigan's summary of what happened, linked Sullivan as the mole, and instructions to pass the info to Dingam. Since this was before he had the tapes, Costigan didn't have any real proof but he knew that if Dingam knew what had happened and who the mole was that he would be able to take care of it (though I doubt he thought that Dingam would kill Sullivan outright).

And, maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Costigan gave Maddy the envelope outside of her office, not her home. Costigan had no idea that Maddy was ever involved with Sullivan and had no way of knowing that she would actually intercept the envelope that he sent him.

 

[Richard Kim]

This is omitted in The Departed.

 

[Jose Martinez]

Which is the problem I have with the last 15 to 20 minutes of The Departed. It seems a lot was omitted or ended up on the cutting room floor. It's just a lot of speculation.

 

[Robert Anthony]

I don't think it was speculation at all, it's pretty easy to draw those conclusions based on what happens. There's only so many scenarios that could actually have fit off-screen, and that one is REALLY easy. I mean, what else COULD have been in the envelope that needed to be disseminated either on the event of his death or after 2 weeks? The only reason he's in the movie is because he's a mole--obviously what's in that envelope is going to pertain to that. And since Dignam shows up in hospital shoes at the end, in Sullivan's house, It's like the cinematic equivalent of Two plus BLANK equals Four.

That the second mole falling out of favor was omitted isn't really important at all, I don't think. And neither did Costigan ever know Sullivan was nailing Madolyn--even if he DID give Maddy the envelope in front of Sullivan's address (and I do believe it was in front of her office, not her pad) it doesn't matter, because he wouldn't know Sullivan was living there. To him it's just Maddy's house.

Sure, his final recourse WAS a bit sloppy, but that's more a product of the fact he's been running on pills and balls for about 2 years straight, he's harried as hell, his identity has just been wiped out, he has no contact with anyone who REALLY knows who he is--his hope is the police psychiatrist. Even then, he should have just capped Sullivan the instant he got to the meeting, or even straight up just sent the tapes anonymously to the cops (or Madolyn again) but he wanted justice, wanted to "KILL" him, and that's actually what got him killed.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I thought Dignam was wearing crime scene "booties" so that he would not leave footprints at the crime scene (Sullivan's pad).

 

[Robert Anthony]

yeah, I worded that sentence wrong, I'm not trying to say "He got the letter, so of course he had to wear hospital shoes." or anything like that, I just really liked the imagery and used it to describe Dignam being there, period.

 

[Doug Miller]

A couple of points about the end:

1. It looked like Sullivan was "composing" himself (pretending to anyway) before he was coming into the condo. I took that to mean he was expecting the shrink to be there. Which to me means...

2. The envelope was a summary for Bingham. The shrink contacted him with the contents of the envelope after DeCaprio was either killed or not heard from in 2 weeks. Bingham said "You don't want to be here at 3." Blam!

In regards to the parental thing, here's why it was DeCaprio's. We know that Sullivan had trouble getting it up from the "it happens to a lot of guys" speech, along with Sullivan talking up his prowess with Baldwin (false bravado). You also had the angle of Costello not being able to father a son. I took the irony of here's Costello not able to have a son, and the guy that kills him thinks he's succeeded where the "father" didn't, when in fact he's just as impotent.

Doug

 

[Richard Kim]

That the second mole falling out of favor was omitted isn't really important at all, I don't think.

The point is that in IA it's shown right at the beginning that there are mutiple gang moles in the police force.
In The Departed, the audience is lead to believe that Sullivan is the only mole working for Costello.

 

[Haggai]

I didn't even think about the paternity question while I was watching the movie, but your explanation does make a lot of sense, Doug.

There's a maybe-sorta-parallel thing in Infernal Affairs when:

Tony Leung runs into an old girlfriend on the street, with her young daughter. He mentions how they haven't seen each other in (I might be remembering these numbers wrong) 5 years. She tells him that the daughter is 3 years old, but after he walks away, the girl says, "Mommy, why didn't you tell him that I'm 4 years old?" Or something like that...the obvious implication being that the girl is his daughter, but the mom doesn't want him (or the girl) to know, presumably because she doesn't want the daughter growing up with a dad in that line of work. It's a nice scene, but IIRC, they completely forget about that plot point until the very last scene of the movie, when the mother and the little girl show up for his funeral!

 

[Tino]

Can we PLEASE use spoiler tags when discussing Infernal Affairs??

Thank you

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yes, please do. Luckily, I've seen Infernal Affairs, but there are many of us that still haven't seen it.





Crawdaddy

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

I found it refreshing that we didn't have to sit through a bunch of obvious, dull, explanatory scenes when we could easily figure out what happened on our own; the precise mechanism of how what information was passed to whom is irrelevant.

In fact, I agree with the praise being heaped upon Monahan because I haven't been surprised by anything that happened in a film in ages. This movie didn't bother to give us all the dull, sweaty details that literal-minded people demand ("I didn't see him take the hat off of the hat rack, but when he went outside he was wearing a hat! MISTAKE!!! OMFG WHAT A TERRIBLE MOVIE!!!LOL"), and it let elements of the plot jump out of nowhere at you -- by this I mean the demise of several characters.

Between this and Kingdom of Heaven (which I loved in both versions), Monahan seems very skilled at presenting morally complex situations. I'll see whatever he writes next without even thinking about it.

 

[Haggai]

Er...sorry about that. Though the specific scene I referred to isn't that much of a spoiler; as I mentioned, they pretty much forget about what happens in that scene for the rest of the movie after it occurs.

 

[Jefferson Morris]

So what do you all think of the rat on the balcony in the final shot? Did Dignam put it there, as a mob-style message?

--Jefferson Morris

 

[MikeRS]

Scorsese winking at the audience?

 

[Holadem]

Yup. Just the perfect finishing touch.

--
H

 

[Joe D]

The rat on the window was great. I really enjoyed that moment.

 

[Nathan V]

Somehow, the rat works on a level beyond words. I saw this with an audience of critics and reviewers and again with a public audience, and both laughed uproariously when the rat arrived- particularly the public audience. I doubt many of them (including myself) would be able to articulate precisely why the rat is so right, and so funny, but it just is. Especially after the sudden bursts of violence before (which the public cheered, but the critics were silent through, interestingly).


Exactly. At the movies, few things are more tiresome than third act exposition. Oliver Stone was talking about editing JFK, saying that with a long film, the pacing has to gradually increase as the film wears on- the audience probably won't notice the increase, but they sure as hell will notice if it stays the same.

I love how Matt Damon is able to communicate to the audience, but not to Alec Baldwin, that he is actually lying when he talks about his sexual abilities. I thought that was a tough feat of acting to pull off.

Regards,
Nathan

 

[Bryan Ri]

Without creating an uber-long post, I came to the same conclusions as Robert with the ending.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Absolutely terrific movie that was perfectly cast!

The film worked tremendously for me with the exception of
one point that I'm just not clear about....


Costello (Nicholson) being an FBI informant. How does one of
the most wanted criminals become an informant to the FBI? What
kind of things would he tell the FBI that wouldn't undermine his own
criminal plans?


That whole aspect just didn't work for me.

Otherwise, the film lives up to its hype. So happy to see Warner
Brothers has this baby. Certain to see a HD-DVD release early next
year unless it gets held up for Oscars.