The Departed directed by the great Martin Scorcese, is based on a Hong Kong action thriller movie, “Internal Affairs”. It is a story in which an undercover agent and a spy try to one up each other. The spy, Colin, is played by Matt Damon and Billy, the undercover agent is played by Leonardo Di Caprio. The conflict in the movie is about deceit, truth and mystery.
Colin has been raised by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson); a mob boss who runs the crime in Bostin. Costello raises Colin to become a detective and he becomes a spy for Costello in the police d, informing him about raids and arrests.
Billy has family ties with the mob through his late uncle but he chooses to join the police at his own behest. When he graduates from the academy, Capt. Queenan (Martin Sheen) and the handler of undercover agents, Srgt. Dignam (Mark Whalberg) persuade him to infiltrate Costello’s gang. No one knows about Billy except these two.
Colin and Billy try to find out each other’s identity. It is a cat and mouse chase. The deception in the movie is cold blooded. When Costello confronts Billy, telling him he thinks he’s the agent, Billy snaps; with this agitation he saves himself not revealing his identity. Costello starts to trust Billy. On the other hand, Colin has everyone fooled, Capt. Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) gives him the task to catch the mole, only Dignam is suspicious of him and punches him in a scene. Colin ends up killing Queenan and after that Billy goes into the Police department and reveals his identity to Colin whom he yet doesn’t know is Costello’s mole. Billy saves himself by identifying a package in the office he had given to Costello.
In the end we see Costello was an FBI informant and Colin kills him and in a later confrontation even Billy is killed. At the very last moment of the movie, we see Dignam killing Colin. The movie is full of twist and turns of deception and the truth. This is what made this movie an instant classic.