History Film / TheDeparted

* ProperlyParanoid: Costello and Queenan are both correct in their assumptions that there's a mole in their respective teams. [[spoiler:More than one, in both cases]].

* FlockOfWolves: [[spoiler:The only two named members of Costello's crew who aren't undercover cops or confidential informants are Fitzy and Mr. French. And that's including Costello himself.]]

* DefiniteArticleTitle

** Sullivan hates working under Costello and likes the legitimate life, if only for social reasons rather than moral ones. [[spoiler:In the end, all his ratting for Costello turns out to be for nothing, because he never had real loyalty to Sullivan and would have ratted him out to the FBI, and indeed had incriminating evidence and a second mole as insurance. He loses the woman he loves when she learns that he's a mole, and he ends up alone, and then he dies]].

In Boston, Massachusetts, notorious [[TheIrishMob Irish Mob]] boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) takes neighborhood boy Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) under his wing, and grooms him to be his informant within the Massachusetts State Police. Colin rises through the rank and file to get himself placed on an investigation unit that is working to bring down Costello.

Meanwhile, Billy Costigan, Jr. (Leonardo [=DiCaprio=]) is seeking to become a cop, despite the fact that he comes from a family that has a very disreputable past and numerous ties to organized crime. His interviewers eventually decide, when Billy refuses to be intimidated out of dropping out of the academy, to arrange for him to go to prison on a trumped-up assault charge, giving him a criminal record and street cred so that he can infiltrate Costello's crew. When both sides of the law realize the situation, both Colin and Billy attempt to discover the other mole's true identity before being found out.

--> '''Frank Costello''': [after shooting a woman] She fell funny.

* EvilCounterpart: Sullivan to Costigan. At one point, they even wear practically identical clothing. Sullivan was a poor orphan and sees Costello as his ParentalSubstitute (albeit an abusive one[[note]]"Is that what you think this is about, all that fucking and no kids?"[[/note]]) and sees his infiltration into the Massachusetts state police as a chance to be the SocialClimber, Billy on the other is born into a slightly well-off family with mob-connections and sees joining the police as a way to prove that he's different from his family, [[BeingGoodSucks which he can only do by parlaying his family's reputation by infiltrating Costello's outfit as a police mole]].

-->-- '''Frank Costello'''

** The finale with a rat is likewise a reference to ''Film/AllThatHeavenAllows'' where a deer's sudden appearance in the background for RuleOfSymbolism is mockingly invokved with even more literal meaning.

[[caption-width-right:285:''We deal in deception here. What we do not deal with is self-deception.'']]

--> -'''Frank Costello'''

* {{Bookends}}: Involving ISOStandardUrbanGroceries. At the beginning of the film Frank Costello instructs the store clerk to fill a white paper bag with various groceries for the kid Colin Sullivan, notably a couple of loaves of bread and a couple of quarts of milk. In the last scene of the film we see adult Colin Sullivan walking into his apartment with a white paper bag full of groceries, two of the items you can see in the bag during this scene are a couple of loaves of bread and a couple of quarts of milk.

* DeathbedConfession: Delahunt, bleeding out from a shot to the chest that isn't going to get treated, reveals that he knows Costigan is undercover, and and may in fact have been trying to identify himself as a cop as well (see AmbigousSituation).

* EvilCounterpart: Sullivan to Costigan. At one point, they even wear practically identical clothing. Sullivan was a poor orphan and sees Costello as his ParentalSubstitute (albeit an abusive one[[note]]"Is that what you think this is about, all that fucking and no kids?"[[/note]]) and sees his infiltration into the FBI as a chance to be the SocialClimber, Billy on the other is born into a slightly well-off family with mob-connections and sees joining the police as a way to prove that he's different from his family, [[BeingGoodSucks which he can only do by parlaying his family's reputation by infiltrating Costello's outfit as a police mole]].

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Costigan is a love machine. Sullivan, meanwhile, seems to have issues with erectile dysfunction. Guess which one is the hero. Averted by Costello, however, who has an active sex life (even at his old age) despite being a far from exemplary individual.

[[caption-width-right:350:''We deal in deception here. What we do not deal with is self-deception.'']]

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:The envelope]].

* EvilDetectingDog: A dog shies away from Sullivan.

** A couple to Shakespeare. Queenan drops "the readiness is all" from ''Hamlet'' in a scene where he's telling Sullivan to start the police raid. Later Costello slightly botches a quote from ''Henry IV Part 2'', saying "Heavy lies the crown" (it's actually "Uneasy lies the crown").

* DeathbedConfession: Delahunt, bleeding out from a shot to the gut that isn't going to get treated, reveals that he knows Costigan is undercover, and is himself an undercover cop as well.

* ShoutOutToShakespeare: "Readiness is all." [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Dignam.

* AmbiguousSituation: Was Delahunt [[spoiler:an undercover cop? After he's killed, he's identified as such on the news, but Costello dismisses it as disinformation planted by the authorities to throw him off the scent of the real mole. Shortly before Delahunt died, however, he confessed to Costigan that he had figured out that Costigan was undercover. "Why didn't I tell nobody?" he asks Costigan; is this a question from a morally conflicted man, or an attempt to clue Costigan in on his own secret identity?]]

* BlackComedy: A lot of what Costello is this:

* BlowingSmokeRings: We see Billy blow some.

* DeathbedConfession: Delahunt reveals that he knows Costigan is undercover [[spoiler:and may in fact have been trying to identify himself as a cop as well (see AmbigousSituation).]]

* AteHisGun: [[spoiler:Mr. French]] has already been shot and then is trapped in his crashed/burning car, with the State Police closing in. "... Fuck it."

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: Costigan reveals that the password for his file in the police database is his full name (including spaces). Sullivan can only shake his head.