The Departed: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Nov 8th, 2006 | Movie Rating: 
FADE IN:
EXT. BOSTON
JACK NICHOLSON kills a whole bunch of people to establish that he’s the bad guy. He finds YOUNG MATT DAMON.
JACK NICHOLSON
If you want to make it in life, you have to be like me, boy.
YOUNG MATT DAMON
I have to develop a comical-looking smile and do successively worse impressions of myself in every movie?
JACK NICHOLSON
No, you need to embrace organized crime. Kill people for money and drugs and stuff.
YOUNG MATT DAMON
Organized crime, eh? This is a real departure for Martin Scorsese.
JACK NICHOLSON
This one has cops, though. Go become one and leak inside information to me.
MATT does this. He graduates with LEONARDO DICAPRIO. They meet with MARK WAHLBERG.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
I’m really looking forward to becoming a cop.
MARK WAHLBERG
Leonardo DiCaprio? Again? What the hell does Scorsese see in you that nobody else does?
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
I dunno, I keep reminding him I was in Titanic. He doesn’t seem to mind.
MARK WAHLBERG
Oh well, I’m going to treat you like shit for the next 10 minutes. When I’m done, hopefully you’ll agree to put your life in jeopardy by going undercover for me.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
That makes sense. I’ll do it.
MARK WAHLBERG
You made the right choice you pathetic pile of horse semen.
LEONARDO exits, MATT DAMON enters.
MARK WAHLBERG
As for you, Matt, I see no reason why we shouldn’t promote you as quickly as possible in order to make the audience angry with us for promoting the rat so trustingly.
MATT DAMON
Thank ya, sah. Ah’ll be shar ta, eh, leak so much infamation as ta clearly indacate Ah’m, eh, a raht.
MARK WAHLBERG
Jesus Christ. Is that your Boston accent? I grew up in Massachusetts, man.
MATT DAMON
Yeah, ah, so did ah.
MARK WAHLBERG
Lord. Did you ever leave the house or did you just watch stereotypes on Saturday Night Live? This is supposed to be a serious movie.
MATT DAMON
Yeah well, wait till you hear Baldwin.
ALEC BALDWIN
Ah, Ich bin ein berliner.
Lots of people get KILLED, because that’s what happens in ORGANIZED CRIME. LEONARDO infiltrates the world of organized crime while MATT infiltrates the world of the police.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
As a cop working undercover in organized crime, I have to regularly deal with the fact that I’m killing innocent people. This makes me tortured and conflicted. This is a theme that has NEVER, EVER been explored in film before.
JACK NICHOLSON
I’m starting to get suspicious that someone inside my group is a mole.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
You’re just now realizing it? Didn’t Matt know that way, way earlier in the movie?
JACK NICHOLSON
Yes, but I’m only just now starting to suspect the person who is both my most recent recruit and an ex cop.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
You’re quite the moron. Well, the cops are trying to find their mole too. You should follow their lead: promote the mole until he is totally above suspicion. It’s how any important investigation should work.
Both groups try to weed out their rat. Meanwhile, MATT DAMON asks psychologist VERA FARMIGA to move in with him.
MATT DAMON
Surely no harm can come from a behavior expert moving in with someone barely holding together a double life.
VERA FARMIGA
I answered a phone call from Jack Nicholson within literally the first 10 seconds of moving in.
MATT and LEONARDO race against each other to figure out who the opposing informant is. Suddenly, it turns out that pretty much everyone is actually an informant.
EVERYONE
You’re all informants?
Everyone is killed by everyone else.
MARK WAHLBERG
Wow, what a poignant and tragic film about organized crime and government corruption.
MARTIN SCORSESE
That’s right, and I’d better win a damned Oscar for it this time.
The film closes with a shot of a RAT walking in front of the MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE, just in case you were a COMPLETE FUCKING IMBECILE.
END
“The film closes with a shot of a RAT walking in front of the MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE, just in case you were a COMPLETE FUCKING IMBECILE.”
Nice little shot at the heavy handed, if interesting, symbolism of most Oscar winners. Kudos for that Rod.
July 7th, 2007 at 11:32 amGot right at it. I guess I must be a complete fucking imbecile because I absolutely did not make the rat connection. God I’m stupid.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:25 pmHAHHA i love it. i’m an imbecile as well. damnit
July 11th, 2007 at 12:27 pmYeah I didn’t notice that reference either, but I kind of stopped paying attention after I realised that Scorsese actually omitted the original’s most brilliant scene in front of the elevator.
July 12th, 2007 at 7:36 amI don’t get it. You spend the whole script poking holes in this crappy over-rated film and then give it 4 and a half stars? What are you, a masochist?
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:26 pmI still don’t get why did Mark W. kill Matt at the end? Was it to avenge the death of M. Sheen or he was just so angry Matt was a rat in his beloved blue shield?
October 21st, 2007 at 10:57 amApparently the poster above me is the complete fucking imbecile.
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:07 pmI might be an imbecile too, but there is something I didn’t get. Leo finds out that Matt is the rat - and runs out of the police station, so Matt erases his identity. Why doesn’t Leo just walk into the next room and tell Alec Baldwin or the only black guy in the movie? Did he just panic? For that matter, why does he have to tell anybody? Nicholson is dead, Damon’s not a rat anymore. Leo couldn’t just say fuck it, take the money and walk away?
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:01 amLeo is a good guy. He couldnt just say fuck it. Plus he wanted to make Matt pay for all the ppl he got killed like Sheen.
December 28th, 2007 at 3:07 pmWahlberg is a “rat” for the Providence Mob. Sullivan is the only one left from that Boston crew and so Providence takes him out.
2 reasons why and they’re tied together…
(1) There’s no way Dingham would kill Sullivan just because Sullivan was a crooked cop… he would have to have some motivation. (Unless he was sleeping with the shrink as well!)
(2) The film ends with a rat along the railing with the State Building in the background. If this doesn’t imply that there’s a rat in the city of Boston, I should be refunded all the money I learned in film school about Scorsese and other artists.
Put these two together and you have your answer.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am‘The Departed’ is my favorite movie, so I’m just completely biased on everything.
So, now that we’ve covered the fact that I’m in love with The Departed (and Leonardo. I just can’t help myself D; ) I’m just gonna go ahead and say that this movie kicks collective ass. Because it does.
I LOVE Martin Scorsese, and obviously the whole gang/mob/violence/kickassery thing is his forte, and this movie is pretty much him at his best. (Excluding Goodfellas, I think, ’cause that movie just all around pwned, and this one does too, but Goodfellas pwned first, so they called pwnage). This movie is really really really great, in my opinion.
(AND BTW, BOSTON AND IRISH ACCENTS ARE SEXY AS HELL.
I was prettymuch drooling through the entire thing listening to all the hut man-candy talk x__x)
It shows a lot of great double-crossing and triple-crossing and whoknowswhatthehellelse-crossing. Jack Nicholson is marvelous as usual, I’m not a fan of Mark Wahlberg but I loved him in this, and Matt Damon is always awesome. I think that this is one of Leo’s better movies, this and Blood Diamond. The only other roll I can think of that he seemed to really try’n put himself into was Abagnale in ‘Catch Me If You Can.’ You can really see how he’s matured as an actor. (Gawd that sounds corny, but piss off ;-; I lurve Leo)
……..and Vera-whatsherface who played Madolyn, I thought she was great
April 8th, 2008 at 12:08 pmThis is the funniest shit I’ve read in a long time. You nailed it. I actually loved the movie but this was still spot on.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:49 pmhaha, genius.
its so annoying how many people who love this who havent seen the original, many of whom who dont even know it is a remake…and not remotely a superior one at that.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:27 amIf Dignam were a rat, he would have given Costello the other rat’s identity.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm