RANKING WHICH CHARACTER IN THE DEPARTED LOVES THE CELTICS THE MOST
Martin Scorsese's The Departed is one of the best Boston movies there is. But, which one of these famous dirtbag characters loves the Celtics the most?
The Boston Celtics are possibly my least favorite basketball team; The Departed, however, which takes place in Boston, is a pulp pop movie in the form of FX’s The Shield; with all of its dirtbag and off-kilter humor, its father-son allegories, and its Irish catholic guilt, it is like Scorsese doing Mean Streets meets a MTV music video. Needless to say, while the movie won’t remotely win the award for smartest or best Scorsese movie, it might be his funniest — outside of 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street — and trashiest, and it’s a privilege to see such a masterful and prestige director like Scorsese attempt to do a film that can still be excellent, despite how comedically screwball it is. It came at a compelling time in Scorsese’s career. Casual folks thought that he was losing his fastball. It had been ten years since Casino, his last masterpiece. Gangs of New York has its moments — a particularly impressive Daniel Day-Lewis, but fizzles out because of studio intervention and Cameron Diaz’s painfully vacant role; The Aviator is a biopic for the movie buff crowd and Leo’s fantastic in it, but it's firmly for the true Scorsese heads; accessibility is not one of its virtues. The Departed is a rejuvenation to the box office mainstream, and Scorsese ended up finally winning the vaunted Academy Award for Best Director for this.
For all of the movie's incredible instincts — the quotable lines (“you rise fast, like a twelve year olds dick”), quick pacing, tight editing by the sublime Thelma Schoonmaker, the graceful anxiety of Martin Sheen, and the scathing and unpredictable DiCaprio, Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin performances — it has some things that truly dissipate its prestigiousness. For starters, Jack Nicholoson’s pivotal and homoerotic role is excellent until it falls off of its cocaine rail; at times, you can see his gangster role becoming another Shining or As Good As It Gets, where Nicholoson sneers and distorts his face, or speaks in a long-winded abrasiveness, and that is an unmistakable mistake because when he is good, he is animalistically thrilling, particularly whenever he is creeping out nuns or dealing with Matt Damon’s Colin, his surrogate son and cop on the inside. The love story — where Matt Damon’s corrupt cop and Leo’s undercover informant are seeing the same woman, an underused Vera Farmiga — is unconscionably dopey. (It should be said that this is a remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, but they still should have kept that subplot in the chamber). Then, at times, the movie — with its aggressive racial humor (“some people want to slam a nigger’s head through a plate glass window”, a supervisior says) and its lack of interesting female roles — can be candy for a fraternity brother at Duke University. The Departed, despite my appreciation for it, can be the insidious bloated movie that people think The Wolf of Wall Street is.
Still, it is the love for the characters and my soft spot for the city of Boston — I have been there every summer for the past seven years to watch my Yankees play in the infamous Fenway Park — that keeps me coming back to it. The aforementioned pacing, moves like Lou Brock once did, and everything is shot below the ground, giving characters an unique and central look. It’s a movie that celebrates line readings and acting too; never has a Scorsese movie taken more joy in how a line is said, or how seriously charming characters can be, even when they’re in the midst of psychotic criminality. It is playing at the Lower East Side’s Metrograph next week, and I hope to see it, because spending two and a hours on the screen hearing Mark Wahlberg’s Dignam say “microprohsessahs” isn’t a bad night at all.
Anyway, the Celtics are playing in the NBA Finals tonight against the Dallas Mavericks. I’m rooting for the Mavs, because Boston sport fans should be in a perpetually angry mood over the fundamental disappointments that their teams bring to them every year; they don’t deserve much happiness. During the first game, an unfortunate drumming by Boston, I had a thought: which character in The Departed is the biggest Celtics fan?
So, we’re doing a list of the biggest Celtics fans in The Departed; we’re doing every leading and supporting character from Leo’s Billy Costigan to Kevin Corrigan’s Cousin Sean. Check this out before the game tonight; enjoy The Departed for all of its flawed brilliance; enjoy basketball — the most beautiful and rewarding game — for the rest of the NBA Finals.
12. Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg)
Sergeant Dignam is an unquestionable racist, someone who likes Boston sports like the Bruins (Dignam loves Zedano Chara), and the Patriots (he adores Belichick and like, Wes Welker). But he doesn’t like the NBA. He hates the NBA, with a burning passion. Guys like Dignam think that the NBA is too soft now, that they play harder at Providence College, and the players are entitled. Assuming he is still alive, and doing private security for Dave Portnoy, he thinks that LeBron is a punk, and that Kyrie Irving is a terrible person. (In other words, they are rich Black men and Dignam doesn’t like that at all).
He likes the Red Sox but thinks that Fenway Park is populated with progressive yuppies, so he avoids it. For Dignam, the Bruins are everything: Bobby Orr is the only man that he idolizes. When Doc Rivers was at a gala for police officers in Boston, Dignam met him and thought that he was the only Black man that he could actually stand. Paul Pierce, however, is a thug who does not deserve to wear the Celtic green. Other than that, the Celtics are not for Dignam; sometimes when Antoine Walker would shoot a three early in the shot clock, Dignam would mutter “nigger” under his breath.
11. Dr. Madolyn Madden (Vera Farmiga)
Madolyn is a Red Sox girly, through and through. She loves the bars before and after the game, where she goes with her fellow Universty of Massachusetts girlies; she loves “Nomah” Garciaparra and Jason Varitek; she loves Jon Lester. Curt Schilling creeps her out, but not for the strident white supremacy, but because he was mean to journalists. Basketball is not Madolyn’s thing, but she is not really against the Celtics. Her dad took her to a few games when Larry Bird was in his prime, and she has reverence for the history, but she doesn’t do basketball. The players are too Black, and the sport is too fast for her. But those Red Sox, Madolyn absolutely loves. She doesn’t love what Football does to people, the concussions are hard for her, a psychiatrist, to swallow, but she can’t help but enjoy the newfound success of the New England Patriots.
10. Staff Sergeant Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon)
Colin is not into sports very much. He can go to the games with some of his friends from the old neighborhood, and the teenage version of Colin was placing bets for Frank at the betting parlor, but Colin himself is not into sports. He can talk about it, if need be. But, he doesn’t have time for it; he thinks the Celtics are for the firefighters; he’s too busy carrying Frank’s water, and training to become a mole on the inside. Madolyn tried to get him to go to the Red Sox game with her, off screen, and he didn’t go, because Frank told him that baseball was “gay” when Colin was a kid. He met a few Celtics at a police banquet, thought Doc Rivers and Kevin Garnett were charming, but he did not like Paul Pierce, and thought he was a punk. Still, he smiled at Pierce to his face, and admonished Dignam for calling him a racial slur. To Colin, sports is something that is just outside of his purview.
9. Frank Costello (Jack Nicholoson)
The mafia don of The Departed understands that there is a great deal of business to be done in sports. It is quite likely that Frank has fixed some NBA games, through the addicted referees that have patrolled the court in the Bush era; it is likely that Frank has had interactions with athletes before. But Frank, a gangster who does not work for anyone but himself, and maybe the FBI when he wants to inform on other gangsters, does not respect athletes, especially Black ones: to him, the Irish would never play for their WASP’y owners. “That’s what the niggers don’t realize: no one lets you own the team when you are done playing, you have to take it”, says Frank.
He thinks that baseball is gay, esepcially with the butt slapping flying around, and one of the reasons why Frank drifted towards a life of crime is that Carl Yastremki refused to sign his baseball. He has no respect for the Celtics players; Larry Bird refused to be in debt to him, and once again, Frank has no time for actual fandom. To see Boston sports, or Providence basketball, is to see Frank’s cash cow, as the loan sharking that he has done because of his gambling spots have made him very rich and feared in the Boston streets. But Sports itself? Big Frank has no time for this. He’s too busy having sex, and sniffing coke.
8. Mr. Arnold French (Ray Winstone)
Ray Winstone’s sardonic and dependable performance goes unheralded in this movie. So, let me start with that. Mr. French was a gangster’s gangster, Frank’s true soulmate — even though it is clear that Frank doesn’t trust him as much as Mr. French would want him to. With all this being said, like Frank himself, Mr. French does not have time for the Celtics, or sports in general. Maybe French has checked out the sport section a few more times than Frank has, since French has no women or wife, and he definitely needs things to do when he isn’t making coke runs with Frank, but he’s definitely not someone who can recite Paul Pierce’s state line in the 2001-2002 season.
7. Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Billy is a man without a home. It’s why he is compelling as a character. He grew up on the North Shore with his mom, but when he visited his dad, he absorbed every aspect of his Uncle Jackie’s criminal business. He absorbed the accents, the criminality, the sheer lawlessness that Frank and French have. That’s why he is effective as an undercover. The problem is, is that this means that he might not truly have a footprint in sports. Sometimes, he watches the Red Sox and the Celtics, but he can’t really get into it. The Red Sox remind him of his mom, who was a huge fan, too much; the disgusting racism from the Southie side of his family has always prevented him from getting into the Bruins.
As for the Celtics, I think Billy used to watch but he stopped, in pursuit of this respectability that his dad’s side of the family hated. He has not watched since the Rick Pitino days. At the time of his death, he didn’t know that the Celtics were in prime position to get Kevin Garnett. Sports was too painful; it wasn’t something that could help him with his mission, or help him turn his life around. He can talk about Boston sports with his cousin (more on that), but when it comes to actually supporting them, he can’t bring himself to become a dutiful fan. For Billy, life is more complicated than that; it’s a constant and evolving mask.
6. Trooper Barrigan (James Badge Dale)
This is a very small role, but this is absolutely a sports guy. We don't know much about this guy — a jealous peasant who Colin jokes on (“you got any suits at home or like to come in like you’re ready to invade poland?”). Still, Barrigan is a huge Celtics fan. He doesn’t love the NBA, but he still loves the C’s, and whenever LeBron comes into town, he cheers hard for the Celtics. He isn’t high up in the state police chain enough to do any events, but he does love Paul Pierce and his toughness, and wants to take Sullivan to the game.
5. Trooper Brown (Anthony Anderson)
Trooper Brown, in a very minor but very good role by Anthony Anderson, is a huge sports fan — but because he is a Black man in Boston, and that essentially means that he is at risk of having a cross burned on his lawn, he does not want to enjoy the Celtics too much. He doesn’t want any of his white co-workers to argue with him about how soft and Black the NBA is; nor does he want to seem like a radical in the Massachusetts state police. So, I imagine that Trooper Brown tends to like the Patriots, especially the Black players like Assante Samuel and Ty Law. He can connect with his white officers through the Patriots, and their unbridled whiteness. (Trooper Brown would have loved the Tom Brady/MAGA hat situation). It’s hard to be Trooper Brown: you will never make an authority position in the police because you are a Black man; probably 90 percent of the people with you are racists; you are in Black in Boston, and thus, every fandom is tainted by the tension of everyone around him. At least you have the loyalty of your boss, Colin Sullivan.
4. Captain Ellebry (Alec Baldwin)
“Some people don’t trust a cohp with an immaculate recohd, I do, I had an immaculate recohd”, says Alec Baldwin’s Captain Ellebry. Baldwin has had a career of great roles, and also many gnarly personal mistakes, such as the most recent one, where he shot a woman who was working for the movie he was starring in, on set (he was also the producer of the movie). Eventually, if I have any kids, I’ll be bouncing them off my lap and talking about how crazy and troublesome Alec Baldwin was.
But, boy, can the man act. He’s incredible in this, and steals every scene that he is in (“The world needs plenty of bahrtendahs!”, he says, to Dignam). Captain Ellebry absolutely loves sports, and thinks that men who don’t love them are pansies. He loves the Red Sox — he has personally golfed with former manager Terry Francona — and he definitely loves the Celtics. I think all four teams he has a real relationship with. The Celtics are definitely his thing, and he also golfs with Doc Rivers from time to time. Larry Bird and Dennis Johnson were his all-time favorite Celtics; and the NBA, which he thinks is a fun league because they cater to his young sons, is something that he enjoys regularly. Whenever Kobe or a big star comes to the Boston Gardens, he brings his kids to the game, and cheers on his Celtics!
We don’t know much about Delahunt, but what we do know is that he absolutely loves the Celtics. For some reason, Delahunt is a Celtics nut. He is a true Boston guy, and he doesn’t truly respect the Patriots, because they almost moved to Connecticut. He thinks the Red Sox are a bunch of losers. It’s all about the C’s when it comes to Delahunt. (A great scene in this movie is when Delahunt dies shortly after realizing that Billy is the rat).
2. Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen)
QUEENAN! THE KINDEST SOUL IN THIS MOVIE!
Martin Sheen’s Captain Queenan is by far the character who you would want to know in real-life. He’s such a dad, to both Billy and Dignam, and even to his own kids who he is very proud of. He dies a gnarly and unfortunate death in this, which is too bad, because Queenan proudly loved his Celtics, and thought that the brand of basketball that the 1986 team played with was basketball that Dr. Naismath wanted. While Queenan misses when Bird and Magic were competing against each other, he still loves the Celtics, and thinks that Paul Pierce plays with heart. Queenan was the first cop on the scene when racist Boston fans took a shit in Bill Russell’s house, and tarnished his legacy by forcibly breaking his trophies in half. He took empathy with Russell, calling those kids punks. Queenan has always been a man of the people, iuncluding the very Black Dorchester population, and he uses the Celtics to bond with those people. (Queenan would have loved Kevin Garnett, had he lived to see him play).
As for the other sports, he likes the Red Sox and the Patriots, but it is truly the Celtics that Queenan goes hard for. Basketball is a fierce game (he coaches the intramural police league), and for Queenan, his fandom is alive in every way when he watches the Celtics play.
1. Cousin Sean Costigan (Kevin Corrigan)
We don’t see enough of Cousin Sean, who is fucking hilarious throughout The Departed. While Nas’s “Thief Theme” plays, a great touch, Sean and Billy are doing amatuer coke deals in Worcester, which is Costello’s territory. But because Sean is a Costigan, and that name is royalty in the mob, he isn’t being punished for it. That means him and Billy can go roughshod, until Costello finally nips it in the butt.
Another thing about Cousin Sean: he absolutely goes hard for the Celtics. He is a Celtics nut. Paul Pierce is his favorite player; Delonte West is a guy he is excited about. Assuming he is still alive, and reeling somwhere after the death of Billy (spoilers, but y’all should have all seen this), he is definitely going apeshit right now, watching the Celtics spoil the Mavericks’s plan for domination in the NBA. He has been calling Luka Doncic a “German”, and has been giving Kyrie the worst of it, filling up the arena with anger over the fact that Irving did not want to be a Celtic.
I imagine that Cousin Sean can name you Celtics, like Antoine Walker, who he would name his kid after. On the wall of his bedroom, is a picture of him and Billy, a picture of his Uncle Jackie, a picture of Billy’s Dad, and a picture of Ricky Davis. The Celtics are an organization with a rich history — so much so that even the losing teams are famous. Sean was in the building for Rick Pitino’s infamous “Robert Parish is not walking through that door” speech, and while he hates the boorish and unpredictable Pitino, he did love some of the young guys on that team.
Cousin Sean might not be a smart fellow, and his coke deals were macho idiocy, but he rigorously loves his Celtics — even when they’re as bad as he intuition for crime.