The Departed/YMMV

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• Acceptable Religious Targets: In the "Catholic priests are pedophiles" mold. One is mocked by Costello while another is mentioned as being a member of the Costigan family by Dignam early in the film.
• Adaptation Displacement: The Departed was based on the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Costello knows Costigan is a rat, but is too old and psychotic to care - and believes that, as he's an FBI informant and has Sullivan's help, he is untouchable anyway.
• Complete Monster: Costello and Mr. French both.
• Consolation Award: Despite its 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating and placing third of Scorsese's films on the IMDb Top 250, there are critics who believe the Academy Awards it received for Best Picture and Best Director were make-up calls for Scorsese's previous more deserving work having been snubbed at the Oscars.
• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Let's face it, it is a very dark movie that is more so than Infernal Affairs. There is no point having empathy for any of the characters in this movie, since they were all remotely unsympathetic.
• Narm Charm: Alec Baldwin is tremendously over the top in his usual way but is all the more funny and enjoyable because of it.
  • Also, Nicholson's performance. His unbelievable acting is completely hilarious, but it serves to make him so entertaining that the audience is forced to root for both him and the police.
• What Could Have Been: Multiple roles had originally been offered to different actors.
  • Brad Pitt was originally cast as Sullivan, but he dropped out to work on Babel.
  • Gerard McSorley (Robert Aske in The Tudors) was originally slated to play Queenan but had to drop out of the project. Robert De Niro turned down the role to star in The Good Shepherd.
  • Ray Liotta was the original choice for Dignam, but had to decline due to other commitments. The role was also offered to Denis Leary, who turned it down to due to scheduling conflicts with Rescue Me.
  • Ellerby was originally offered to Mel Gibson, who was unable to accept because he was starting production on Apocalypto.
  • Brown was originally offered to The RZA, who turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.