by Quinn Blackburn

Created on: August 10, 2007

Who Knew Cranberry Juice Could Break Your Jaw?

"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a f&*$ing job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That's what the n*&$ers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it." These opening lines by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) in Scorsese's film "Departed" are delivered cheerfully and without rancor, just letting you know how things are here. They definitely set the stage for this interesting drama.

"Departed" isn't just about what lies under the belly of Boston's clever workingman exterior, as the title implies it is about those who pass on before us, why and who gets left behind. A rather cold, business-like and mock polite label for the truth left behind, revealed or unrevealed, when a person becomes an empty body. Typically a heck of a mess that someone else will be cleaning up and only the Gods know for sure what really went down. Frank is one ruling class in Southies' "Irish mafia", and we see right from the beginning just how much of a family business he runs. Taking young fatherless Colin Sullivan under his wing, we see Colin (Matt Damon) eagerly accept the role of adopted prodigal son and rise rapidly through the ranks of Boston's state police force. He's not the only "statie" with roots in the rough south side of Boston though.

Colin is so wrapped up in his own ambitions that he never noticed young Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) training right beside him. Billy is in a unique position though as he's never hid his family connections...or his anger and disdain of them. Outside the hospital room of his dying mother, Billy confronts his Uncle Ed in a personally satisfying moment, "Maybe it would have done you some good to have some *questions* from time to time, you know? "Am I an @$$hole? Are my kids a mess? Is my wife a money-grubbing wh&*#?" I mean, those are questions, right? "Have I ever been good to my dying sister or am I just now pretending to be?"

But Colin's bosses Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) want him to be something more than a Statie. "You got a 1400 on your exams. You're an astronaut, kid. Not a Statie." In fact, they want to

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