"It’s about trust, betrayal, and deception," says the iconic director. Though the film is set among Irish gangsters in Boston, it could be about "the west side of New York; Afghanistan; it could be anywhere. It’s about human nature, really. We try to be as close as possible to the nature of that world, but ultimately I feel that it’s really about people who ultimately are stuck in an undeclared war zone, and there’s no way for them to get out."
Jack Nicholson plays gangland boss Frances "Frank" Costello, who has attained a small criminal empire in South Boston.
"He’s like a mad god who understood at one time there was morality, and knows that there is no longer any," Scorsese describes. "Costello is in a sense a person who has gone beyond that, and has gotten too old and too crazy to give a damn about anything anymore. And why should he? He’s had all the power, and is pretty invincible. He puts himself in the front lines of drug deals, at his age, just for the thrill of it. But he can’t get any more thrills. He has seen his day; he’s on his way out, and he doesn’t care."
Working with Nicholson on "The Departed" is an all-star lineup led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. Many in the cast, especially DiCaprio, relished the opportunity to work closely with the acting legend.
"Jack is old school," says DiCaprio. "He’s this force of nature that just comes on to the set and you have to roll with the punches. He’s very unpredictable when he’s on camera, and when that camera starts rolling, you know anything can happen. It’s really exciting as a young actor to be able to play against that. There were moments in this film where I didn’t know what was going to happen next."
Though the character of Costello is exceedingly dark, Scorsese sees those characters orbiting around him as basically decent people. "I’m interested in people who are decent or good who, whether it’s something in their nature, upbringing, circumstances, or whatever, end up doing bad things," says Scorsese.
"How many people in real life walk the straight and narrow? Not too many," says William Monahan, who wrote the screenplay based on the 2002 crime thriller out of Hong Kong, "Infernal Affairs". "Maybe certain religious figures and various saints; almost everybody else is just doing what they can in a state of almost complete confusion, usually trying to do the right thing, but sometimes, you know, it’s a complicated world."
In his third collaboration with Scorsese (following "The Aviator" and "Gangs of New York"), DiCaprio plays Billy, an undercover cop who has been assigned by his boss (Martin Sheen) to infiltrate Costello’s crime syndicate. "Billy comes from this underworld background and he has all the chips against him in a lot of ways," says DiCaprio. "I think he basically joins the police force because he has no other options. He gets involved in becoming an undercover police officer, and it’s a lot like a young man going to fight in a war in that he has no idea, politically, what he’s fighting for. That’s what Billy is in a lot of ways–a very confused character."
Just as the police have sent Billy in as a mole, Costello himself has men who have infiltrated the police force. His most successful operative is Colin, played by Matt Damon, whom Costello groomed from early life to become the perfect cop and the perfect mole. "Using the loyalty that Colin feels for him, he convinces this young guy to take the test to qualify, to join the state police and to inform for him," says Damon. "So, you have people pretending to be who they’re not throughout this."
The situation itself escalates as masks fall away and the characters’ true identities are forced out into the light. Damon notes that Colin appears able to handle the increasing intensity of the situation until in one instant Costello upends the character’s sense of control.
"At a certain point, Colin realizes he’s in way over his head, and he’s never going to get out," describes Scorsese, "and then he proceeds to bungle every step. He gets deeper and deeper and deeper into a situation in which, ultimately, he collides with Billy. They’re on two tracks running, in a way, and of course they’re trying to find out who the other one really is and to deal with the situations they created for themselves in their lives. Ultimately, when they do face each other, it’s an explosive situation."
"‘Heaven holds the faithful departed,’" Scorsese quotes what he once said as a young altar boy at mass.
"It’s an expression for passing away," adds DiCaprio. "I think a lot of these characters are already sort of walking dead. They’re living lives that they don’t want to live in a lot of ways, and a lot of them have made choices that are eventually going to take them to that place."
The Departed is distributed by Warner Bros. and opens in theaters on October 4.