The Departed

The Departed is the 2006 Academy Award Best Picture winner and crime drama directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg. It is an American remake of the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs. The plot of the movie is said to be partially inspired by a famous Bollywood flick Don (1978 film).


This film takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, where notorious Irish Mob boss Francis "Frank" Costello (Nicholson) plants his protégé Colin Sullivan (Damon) as an informant within the Massachusetts State Police. Simultaneously, the police assign undercover cop William Costigan, Jr. (DiCaprio) to infiltrate Costello's crew. When both sides of the law realize the situation, each man attempts to discover the other's true identity before being found out.


The film begins in South Boston and Charlestown during the Boston riots featuring a montage of documentary footage with voice-over narration by Irish mob boss Francis "Frank" Costello (Jack Nicholson). While in a local store to collect his pay-off from the owner, Costello recognizes and speaks with a young neighborhood boy named Colin Sullivan (played by Conor Donovan). Costello has the store owner give Sullivan two bags of groceries, and tells Sullivan to come around when he wants to "earn" some extra money. Sullivan later takes Costello up on the offer, and is introduced to Costello's criminal underworld at a tender age. While in his company, Costello indoctrinates Sullivan with beliefs that "a man makes his own way", and "no one gives it to you... you have to take it". Costello points out that when people tell him what to do, he makes sure "something happens to them".

Many years later, an older Colin Sullivan, (now played by Matt Damon) is finishing his training for the Massachusetts State Police with fellow classmate Barrigan (James Badge Dale). In another class are cadets Brown (Anthony Anderson) and William Costigan, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio). All four men graduate to become state troopers. Sullivan makes sergeant, and also passes the state trooper detective test. Shortly afterward, Sullivan meets with the calm and collected Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and the aggressive and cynical Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), and is assigned to the Special Investigations Unit ("S.I.U.") of the State Police Department. Queenan and Dignam also interview Costigan, but with a different assignment in mind. Queenan and Dignam ask Costigan Costigan, whose family had ties with the Boston underworld, to join the undercover division of S.I.U., and be placed as a mole in Costello's crew. To make his new identity believable, S.I.U. creates a false assault conviction for Costigan. Costigan then serves a four month jail sentence to comply with the sham conviction, and is placed on probation requiring psychiatry sessions with staff psychiatrist Madolyn Madden (Vera Farmiga). Costigan's police academy record and file are concealed from the department, leaving only Queenan and Dignam with any knowledge as to Costigan's true identity.

Sullivan, in the meantime, is fortuitously placed in organized-crime division of S.I.U., in an "elite unit" headed by the sardonically humorous Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin). The unit's only target is mob boss Frank Costello, on whom the unit gathers surveillance and information on through enhanced coordination with the FBI. Although Staff Sergeant Dignam agrees to assist Ellerby's unit, he illustrates his distrust of other department bureaus by refusing to reveal whether there are currently any police moles inside Costello's gang. Dignam instead provides only trivial information to Ellerby's unit about advanced weapon micro-processors that are believed to have been stolen by Costello.