Crime and consequences

The Departed brilliantly depicts man’s depravity | Marvin Olasky

Crime movies generally have muckraking views of the world, and none shows Boston's muck more vividly than The Departed. The film earns its R rating for torrents of brutal violence, foul language, and some sexual and drug elements.

The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese from a gritty, witty William Monahan script, has no redeeming social value except one: It brilliantly depicts the depravity of man and the consequences of immorality. It is thus a more moral film than those that gloss over life without God.

The film displays nuanced acting by Matt Damon (a bad guy posing as a good guy policeman) and a maturing Leonardo DiCaprio (a good guy, deep-undercover cop posing as a bad guy). Both want to please father figures, one played by a satanic Jack Nicholson and the other by a sympathetic Martin Sheen. Both—we suspend disbelief for this—love the same woman, played movingly by Vera Farmiga: She's a faithful listener in a world where almost everyone else is faithful only to the Red Sox.

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October 21, 2006, Vol. 21, No. 40

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