There are rats and then there are rats. But what does it take to be one kind rather than the other?
Same thing as with Donnie Brasco: Costello wants to know if Billy is a rat, working for the cops. Well, order him to hit the next guy he wants whacked. Order him to commit a major crime. Would he if he were a cop? Isn’t that what gangs do?
Of course, Frank…he’s kind of a rat himself, isn’t he?
What must it be like to live in a world where you really can’t trust anyone around you. A world where every other word out of your mouth [and every other word you hear] is probably a lie. And one in which you have to pretend to be someone else. Slipping in and out of very different frames of mind.
And somehow this is all about “being Irish” too—as though there must be a gene for that.
IMDb
[b]Mark Wahlberg based his performance on the police officers who’d arrested him about two dozen times in his youth, and the reactions of his parents who had to come bail him out with their grocery money.
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The only remake of a foreign film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
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The Departed, and the character of Francis “Frank” Costello (Jack Nicholson), is loosely based on the story of Whitey Bulger [born 1929], a Boston Southie considered by Law Enforcement to be one of the last Irish mobsters. Bulger often gave information to John Connolly, an FBI agent, on the Italian Mafia in Boston, in order to take over the city himself. Bulger spent his career as a psychotic killer and even ran guns for the IRA in the 1970s. Even after Bulger stopped passing on actual information to the FBI, Connolly still protected him from the Staties. Bulger was captured in Santa Monica, CA in 2011 after being on the run for over 15 years and is currently awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to nearly 50 criminal charges.[/b]
wiki
Film critic Stanley Kauffmann describes a major theme of The Departed as one of the oldest in drama—the concept of identity—and how it “affects one’s actions, emotions, self-assurance and even dreams.”
Maybe, but not the way in which Donnie Brasco experienced it. The persona did not become the actual point of view.
Andrew Lau, the co-director of Infernal Affairs, who was interviewed by Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, said, “Of course I think the version I made is better, but the Hollywood version is pretty good too. [Scorsese] made the Hollywood version more attuned to American culture.”
THE DEPARTED
Directed by Martin Scorsese
[b]Frank: 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 fucking job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That’s what the niggers 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.
…
Frank: You do well in school?
Young Colin: Yeah
Frank: Good. So did I. They call that a paradox.
…
Frank: Church wants you on your place. Kneel, stand, kneel, stand. If you go for that sort of thing, I don’t know what to do for you. A man makes his own way. No one gives it to you. You have to take it. “Non serviam.”
Young Colin: James Joyce.
Frank: Smart, Colin. Guineas from the north and down Providence try to tell me what to do. And, uh, something maybe happens to them. Maybe, uh, like that.
[cuts to Costello executing two people on beach]
Frank: Jeez. She fell funny.
[chuckles at the dead bodies]
Mr. French: Francis, you really should see somebody.
…
Frank: When you decide to be something, you can be it. That’s what they don’t tell you in the church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I’m saying to you is this: when you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?
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Billy: Look at it this way: You’re a black guy in Boston. You don’t need any help from me to be completely fucked.
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Billy: You a psychiatrist?
Dignam: Well, if I was I’d ask you why you’re a Statie making 30 grand a year. And I think if I was Sigmund fuckin’ Freud I wouldn’t get an answer. So tell me, what’s a lace-curtain motherfucker like you doing in the Staties?
Billy: Families are always rising or falling in America, am I right?
Queenan: Who said that?
Billy: Hawthorne.
Dignam: [makes a farting sound] What’s the matter, smartass, you don’t know any fuckin’ Shakespeare?
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Queenan: We have a question: Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to appear to be a cop? It’s an honest question. A lot of guys just want to appear to be cops. Gun, badge, pretend they’re on TV.
Dignam: Yeah, a lot of people just wanna slam a nigger’s head through a plate-glass window.
Billy: I’m all set without your own personal job application. Alright, Sergeant?
Dignam: What the fuck did you say to me, trainee?
Billy: [to Queenan] With all due respect, sir, what do you want from me?
Dignam: Hey asshole, he can’t help you! I know what you are, okay? I know what you are and I know what you are not. I’m the best friend you have on the face of this earth, and I’m gonna help you understand something, you punk. You’re no fuckin’ cop!
…
Mr. French: [calmly] Hey, hey, hey… do you know me?
Billy: No, no.
Mr. French: Well, I’m the guy that tells you there are guys you can hit and there’s guys you can’t. Now, that’s not quite a guy you can’t hit, but it’s almost a guy you can’t hit. So I’m gonna make a fuckin’ ruling on this right now. You don’t fuckin’ hit him. You understand?
Billy: Yeah.
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Dignam: My theory on Feds is that they’re like mushrooms, feed 'em shit and keep 'em in the dark.
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Frank: I’m going to have my associate search you.
Billy: No, no one’s fucking searching me. Searching me for what?
Frank: Contra-fucking-band. Take your shoes off.
[French slams Costigan into a chair]
Mr. French: Shoes.
Frank: [to Costigan] I knew your father.
Billy: Yeah? You know he’s dead?
Frank: Oh, sorry. How’d he go?
Billy: He didn’t complain.
Frank: Yeah, that was his problem.
Billy: Who said he had a problem?
Frank: I just said he had a fucking problem. There’s a man who could have been anything.
Billy: Are you trying to say he was nothing?
[French slams Costigan onto a pool table and continues his search]
Frank: I’m saying he worked at the airport.
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Frank: Who let this IRA motherfucker in my bar?
[the man looks startled]
Frank: [laughs] Only kidding. How’s your mother?
Man in Costello’s Bar: Oh… I’m afraid she’s on her way out.
Frank: [walks away] We all are. Act accordingly.
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Colin: What Freud said about the Irish is: We’re the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis.[/b]
No, not really.
[b]Frank: Good day, father.
Older Priest: Good day, Francis.
Frank: You recall our chat? Little boys. Sucking on their peckers, etc… and so forth. I am as God made me. Is that your rationale? May I remind you - in this archdiocese, God don’t run the bingo.
Young Priest: May I remind you - that pride comes before the fall.
Frank: How’s Sister Mary Teresa doing? Had a tasty relationship before she took her vows.
[Costello hands the priests a nude of the nun]
Frank: Enjoy your clams, cocksuckers.
…
Billy [to Madolyn]: You sit there with a mass murderer. A mass murderer. Your heart rate is jacked, and your hand… steady. That’s one thing I figured out about myself in prison. My hand does not shake…ever
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Billy: So, do they all come in here and cry your cops?
Madolyn: Sometimes they do yeah. If they’ve had to use their weapons…
Billy: Use their weapons? Let me tell you something. They signed up to use their weapons. Most of them. But they watch enough TV so they know they have to weep after they use their weapons. There is no one more full of shit than a cop…except for a cop on TV.
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Dignam: Hey, what do you think…you can pop somebody and there’s a special card to play? That guy, Jimmy Bags whose jaw you broke happens to work undercover for the Boston Police Department.
Billy: Look, I’m going fucking nuts, man. I can’t be someone else every fuckin’ day. It’s been a year of this. I’ve had enough of this shit!
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Billy: When are you gonna take Costello, huh? I mean, what’s wrong with taking him on any one of the million fucking felonies that you’ve seen him do, or I’ve seen him do? I mean, I mean, he murdered somebody, right? The guy fucking murders somebody, and you don’t fucking take him! What are you waiting for, honestly? I mean, do you want him to chop me up and feed me to the poor? Is that what you guys want?
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Billy [to Madolyn]: Two pills? Great. Why don’t you just give me a bottle of Scotch and a handgun to blow my fucking head off?
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Madolyn: Why is the last patient of the day always the hardest?
Billy: Because you’re tired and you don’t give a shit. It’s not supernatural.
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Frank: If these chinks wanna nuke Taiwan anytime in this century, they better shape up and show me $1 million dollars! What we generally do - in this country! - is one guy brings the item, and the other guy pays him. “No tickee, no laundry”!
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Frank [to Billy]: They didn’t figure we had a Navy.
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Billy: [to Frank Costello] You accuse me once, I put up with it. You accuse me twice… I quit. You pressure me to fear for my life and I will put a fucking bullet in your head as if you were anybody else. Okay?
[Frank drops something. He reaches under the table and pulls up a gun. He looks at it as if he’s never seen it before and then points it at Billy]
Frank: You got something you wanna… ask me?
Billy: Look, you’re seventy fucking years old. One of these guys is going to pop you. One of your own guys is going to pop you. As for running drugs, what the fuck. You don’t need the money or the pain in the ass, and they’re going to catch you.
Frank: I haven’t “needed the money” since I took Archie’s milk money in the third grade. Tell you the truth, I don’t need pussy any more either… but I like it.
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Billy: Frank, how many of these guys have been with you long enough to be disgruntled, huh? Think about it. You don’t pay much, you know. It’s almost a fuckin’ feudal enterprise. The question is, and this is the only question, who thinks that they can do what you do better than you?
Frank: The only one who could do what I do is me. A lot of people had to die for me to be me. You wanna be me?
Billy: I probably could be you, yeah. Yeah, I know that much. But I don’t wanna be you, Frank. I don’t want to be you.
Frank: “Heavy lies the crown”…that sort of thing?
Billy: Yeah.
…
Ellerby: Queenan is dead. I’m your boss now.
Dignam: I don’t give a fuck, I’d rather hand in my papers first.
Ellerby: World needs plenty of bartenders - two weeks, with pay!
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Frank [to Colin]: One of us had to die. With me, it tends to be the other guy.
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Frank: Fucking rats. It’s wearing me thin.
Mr. French: Francis, it’s a nation of fucking rats.
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Frank: How the fuck did this happen?
Colin: You’re an FBI informant? Are you fucking kidding me?
Frank: Grow up!
[laughing]
Frank: Of course I talk to the FBI.
Colin: Do they know who I am?
Frank: I…I never gave up anybody who wasn’t going down anyway. Nobody knows nothin’.
Colin: Frank… Frank. Do they know about me?
Frank: I know about you, Colin. You know I’d never give you up. You’re like a…
Colin: What, like a son? To you? Is that what this is about? All that murderin’ and fuckin’ and no sons?
[They shoot at each other]
Colin: Fucking rat prick!!
…
Colin: Okay.[/b]