Speaker 1: Just a quick note Jamie jumping in here to say
Speaker 1: that Susan is a fan of the Bechdel Cast, but
Speaker 1: does not necessarily share all of Caitlin and my views
Speaker 1: enjoy the show.
Speaker 2: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 2: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 2: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zeph and
Speaker 2: vest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Don Welcome to the Bechdel Cast, Kaitlyn.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you something that like kind of
Speaker 1: defies the Bechdel test immediately. But if Martin Scorsese was
Speaker 1: given the choice, this is the trolley problem I'm going
Speaker 1: to present. Either one of his children disappears forever because
Speaker 1: he's got a lot, or the song Gimme Shelter was
Speaker 1: never written. What do you think he would choose? I
Speaker 1: feel like, and I love Martin Scorsese, I feel like
Speaker 1: he has to love the song Gimme Shelter more than
Speaker 1: at least one of his kids. Wow, I feel like
Speaker 1: there's one he would part with.
Speaker 3: He would depart with, he would depart with.
Speaker 1: He would I think he would depart his least favorite
Speaker 1: child this man loves. I mean, and I know maybe
Speaker 1: it's just because we also just watch Goodfellas, but it's
Speaker 1: in this movie for like forty whole minutes. It just
Speaker 1: starts to loop during one scene. You're just like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's his favorite.
Speaker 3: As does that Dropkick Murphy's song I feel like plays
Speaker 3: multiple times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll ask our guests in a second. I think
Speaker 1: that there is actually kind of like a state law
Speaker 1: about that song, Like you can't even kind of get
Speaker 1: a permit to film if you don't use it, like.
Speaker 3: To film in Boston or Massachusetts. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they won't let you unless you've already like
Speaker 1: broke her to deal with with the Dropkick Murphy's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's true in any case. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Bestel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my name
Speaker 1: is Caitlin Dante. This is our podcast where we examine
Speaker 1: movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel test
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point. And as I've said recently,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just over explaining what the Bechtel test is,
Speaker 1: since it truly has not very much to do with
Speaker 1: our show. So and certainly nothing to do with this movivie.
Speaker 1: I yes. If you don't know what the Bechtel test is,
Speaker 1: it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel.
Speaker 1: Lots of versions of the test. The version of the
Speaker 1: test we use is that it requires two characters of
Speaker 1: a marginalized gender with names talking to each other about
Speaker 1: something other than a man. I include it in this
Speaker 1: episode only because I'm pretty certain it does not happen
Speaker 1: in this movie, not even close, like not even remote, Like,
Speaker 1: oh god, this is It's so weird because Scorsese is
Speaker 1: so all over the place with women characters. Like when
Speaker 1: he nails it, he nails it. And sometimes he's just
Speaker 1: like like there's this element of like there's one woman
Speaker 1: in the movie, and she kind of just exists in
Speaker 1: the context of two rooms, like Vera Farmiga is like
Speaker 1: in an apartment or her office. Only I'm worried about her.
Speaker 1: It feels like she's like got like a little ankle
Speaker 1: bracelet that will start beeping if she wanders too a
Speaker 1: far afield from the plot. In any case, that's what
Speaker 1: our show is, and we can tell you right now
Speaker 1: it doesn't pass the Bectel test. So we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about literally everything else that departed two thousand and
Speaker 1: six Martin Scorsese Boston, and we have an incredible guest.
Speaker 3: We sure do. She is a journalist, author, producer, and
Speaker 3: New Englander. Her reporting is mostly on New England crime, okay,
Speaker 3: relevant to one of the.
Speaker 1: Movies you see what we're doing here what.
Speaker 3: She wrote and produced the twenty two Hulu docuseries The
Speaker 3: Murders Before the Marathon, which was named one of the
Speaker 3: best shows of the year by The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 3: and her book The Walthame Murders is out now. It's
Speaker 3: Susan's all kind welcome.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thanks for being here.
Speaker 1: Before we get into talking about the depoted, we want
Speaker 1: to hear about the book. Let our listeners know, because
Speaker 1: I know you've been conducting this investigation for over a decade.
Speaker 5: Now, yeah, and I'm only just now getting the new
Speaker 5: reporting in the book out there in the world. I
Speaker 5: think most people have heard of the Boston marathon bombing,
Speaker 5: the Whitey Bulger cases we'll talk about soon. It was
Speaker 5: one of those huge Boston crime stories. I think the
Speaker 5: Boston marathon bombing might even surpass that it was a
Speaker 5: horrific attack, and there's still a lot of unanswered questions. Okay,
Speaker 5: so Tamalin Sernaya was one of the bombers. Eighteen months
Speaker 5: before the bombing, there was this horrific triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Speaker 5: Three men were found with their throat slit. There was
Speaker 5: marijuana dumped on two of the bodies. It was this
Speaker 5: extremely unusual, horrific murder. And at the time, I was
Speaker 5: actually just out of college. I was working as a
Speaker 5: freelance overnight production assistant at a local news station. Whitey
Speaker 5: Bulger had just been busted and it was this big,
Speaker 5: exciting story, and I was looking for a way to
Speaker 5: work my way up to the assignment desk or maybe
Speaker 5: become a reporter.
Speaker 4: And I'm from the area.
Speaker 5: I've been following homicide cases my whole life, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is an intriguing case, right, And then I found
Speaker 5: out one of the victims was my friend marijuana dealer,
Speaker 5: who was just like sweet, kind human being. He was
Speaker 5: a great friend, not just to myself but to a
Speaker 5: lot of members in my community. And I stopped reporting
Speaker 5: on crime after that. Literally it was emotional to say
Speaker 5: the least right. So that was my eager to be
Speaker 5: a crime reporter, Whitey Bulger news, Go, Go, Go.
Speaker 4: Crash and boom.
Speaker 5: And then I found out my friend was killed, and
Speaker 5: I stepped back from all of that. After the bombing,
Speaker 5: there were new theories that maybe Tamalin Sirnaiev could have
Speaker 5: been involved in the nine eleven eleven brutal homicide of
Speaker 5: his friend. I was friends with one of the victims,
Speaker 5: Tamalin Surnaie was actually friends and sparring partners with another
Speaker 5: one of the victims, frend and Mess, and I was
Speaker 5: of course very curious about that as well, and I
Speaker 5: started looking into it, and I had inklings that maybe
Speaker 5: this case wasn't being pursued aggressively by police at the time,
Speaker 5: but this was a well funded police unit. It was
Speaker 5: a really unusual murder, so I surprised about that. And
Speaker 5: then one month later, a man in Florida was shot
Speaker 5: dead by an FBI agent in an interview with two
Speaker 5: Massachusett State troopers. He was shot seven times in his
Speaker 5: own home, and the story that was leaked to the
Speaker 5: press was that this man, who was also a MMA fighter,
Speaker 5: confessed and that he implicated Tamerlin Cernayev and.
Speaker 4: Himself in my friend's murder.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: But there was no on the record reporting on any
Speaker 5: of this. So even though I had a personal connection
Speaker 5: to this case, it was very emotional for me. I
Speaker 5: knew that I needed answers, and I made a commitment
Speaker 5: to push this case forward and to stick with it
Speaker 5: until the end. And no more than a decade later
Speaker 5: there I am holy shit.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a wonderful book. I'm in the midst
Speaker 1: of it right now, so we would definitely check it out.
Speaker 1: And it makes you truly maybe the best possible guest
Speaker 1: to have on the show to talk about the Departed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all three of us have lived in the Boston area
Speaker 1: at one point or another, so let's start by talking
Speaker 1: about our personal history with the movie and also just like,
Speaker 1: say what area in Boston you've lived in?
Speaker 4: Come on, yeah, Susan, Okay, I'm from Newton. Try not
Speaker 4: to tell people.
Speaker 5: Let's it destroys my street credibility.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's sober.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're cooked.
Speaker 5: My family did the like Judish migration pattern on my
Speaker 5: dad's side, so we went like Chelsea, Dorchester, Brookline, Newton and.
Speaker 4: There we go.
Speaker 5: But I actually uncover like a criminal underworld in my
Speaker 5: hometown of Newton, Waltham and Watertown in the book, which
Speaker 5: was really interesting to me because we don't usually think
Speaker 5: about rime in that area because it's technically safe.
Speaker 1: It's the end of the green line.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I uncover a history of criminal underworld in my
Speaker 5: idyllic suburban hometown in the book, which may be one
Speaker 5: reason why investigators weren't keen on getting answers case in
Speaker 5: the first place. And also I lived in Cambridge for
Speaker 5: years I got out of namely sure.
Speaker 3: And then what's your history with the movie The Departed?
Speaker 4: My history Departed?
Speaker 5: This is one of the movies that you have to
Speaker 5: watch if you're reporting on a crime, if you're trying
Speaker 5: to get a sense for the crime. I mean, The
Speaker 5: Departed is the movie that men on Tinder dates quote
Speaker 5: back to me most frequently when I tell them a reporter.
Speaker 5: So there's that, there's that part of the history of
Speaker 5: The Departed. Looking back on it, I can definitely see that.
Speaker 5: I think I took it in at a young age,
Speaker 5: not very skeptically, you know. Now we're watching it a
Speaker 5: little bit closer. But it's one of those movies that
Speaker 5: kind of just seeps into your soul if you're in
Speaker 5: the Boston.
Speaker 4: Area, for better or worse.
Speaker 5: It's kind of part of local Boston lore at this
Speaker 5: point as well.
Speaker 1: It's deep part of Boston.
Speaker 3: It's deep part of it.
Speaker 1: It's a deep part of it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: WHOA so many puns going from Little Jamie today.
Speaker 1: I know it's because I'm sick. Honestly, I feel like
Speaker 1: I like something something's wrong. Like you know, like when
Speaker 1: you're sick, you can tell you're getting sick because your
Speaker 1: teeth kind of hurt. That's me today. My teeth always
Speaker 1: kind of hurt.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: My history with That Departed is that I didn't see
Speaker 1: it when it came out. I was thirteen when it
Speaker 1: came out, and my mom was like, no, because I'm
Speaker 1: from Brockton, which is famously shouted out. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: by a murderer by the name of Alec Baldwin in
Speaker 1: this movie. This movie is obviously about Boston, but in
Speaker 1: a way, everyone in Brockton knows that Alec Baldwin says
Speaker 1: Brockton fifth. He lives in Brockton with his mother. She's
Speaker 1: straight out of going my Way. It's iconic in Brockton.
Speaker 1: That we were acknowledged exactly one time in cinema.
Speaker 3: Wow, well, don't forget about the menu. When Anya Taylor
Speaker 3: Joy's character is allegedly from Brockton.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I think I got like more texts
Speaker 1: about a movie that I've ever gotten than when the
Speaker 1: Menu came out. They're like the twist. I went to
Speaker 1: high school with her, but yeah, no, I didn't see
Speaker 1: this movie when it came out. My mom also was
Speaker 1: always very like, people get Massachusetts all wrong in movies,
Speaker 1: and virtually all of her issues with how Massachusetts is
Speaker 1: portrayed in movies exist within The Departed, which is fair enough.
Speaker 1: I do think that like there is this tendency to
Speaker 1: want to only portray Harvard and like four blocks of
Speaker 1: southeet in every single movie about Massachusetts. There's very little
Speaker 1: interest in anything outside of it. I've been, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about this forever, Like there are stereotypes about the area,
Speaker 1: which are true. Boston is absolutely a very racist city.
Speaker 1: But it's just really frustrating because there are many areas
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts that are tremendously diverse and progressive, and one
Speaker 1: of them is Brockton. And no never talks about Brockton
Speaker 1: except for Annie Taylor Joy and Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 4: I love it when you talk about Brocton.
Speaker 1: It's all I want to do is talk about Brockton. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I've seen The Departed. The first time I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was like, this movie's good, And every time I
Speaker 1: see it now I'm like, this movie is fine. This
Speaker 1: movie is fine if.
Speaker 5: You're just watching for the Boston accents, like this movie
Speaker 5: is a mussy.
Speaker 4: If you're just looking for like a tour de force
Speaker 4: of like.
Speaker 5: Boston actors and actors who aren't from Boston who want
Speaker 5: to prove that they have like a Boston accent they
Speaker 5: can put it on, or like are just having like
Speaker 5: a lot of fun trying, then this is this is
Speaker 5: the movie to watch, like.
Speaker 1: Absolutely micro processes. Caitlin, what's your history with The Departed
Speaker 1: and Boston.
Speaker 3: Well, I lived in Somerville for four years when I
Speaker 3: was attending Boston University, where I did get a master's
Speaker 3: degree in screenwriting, which I of course never bring up.
Speaker 3: But as I was going to school, I lived in Somerville.
Speaker 3: I have seen The Departed a few times, once when
Speaker 3: it came out, and then I rewatched it when I
Speaker 3: was in said master's program because I wrote a script
Speaker 3: when I was in grad school about the Boston Irish Mob.
Speaker 4: What all, right, here we go.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I did absolutely zero research on what
Speaker 3: the Boston Irish Mob was.
Speaker 1: Like, you just watched The Departed.
Speaker 3: I literally just watched The Departed because it was an
Speaker 3: action comedy. So I was like, it's a comedy, it
Speaker 3: doesn't need to be that heavily researched anyway. So I
Speaker 3: wrote that script and then I did absolutely nothing with it.
Speaker 3: It is just sitting on a hard drive somewhere.
Speaker 1: That's our most scripts.
Speaker 3: But I watched The Departed I think a couple times
Speaker 3: in order to like inform my writing of that script.
Speaker 5: Do not watch The Departed if you're trying to learn
Speaker 5: about the Boston Irish mom. But that said, like, maybe
Speaker 5: we should partner up and like revive the script, like
Speaker 5: with our paths.
Speaker 4: I'm fine, maybe it could be could be ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, it's dangerous to talk about Boston and in
Speaker 1: the show. I have two more quick things so that
Speaker 1: I know we have to get started. I wanted to
Speaker 1: quickly flex that I constantly confuse The Departed in the
Speaker 1: town to me they are the same movie. Every time
Speaker 1: I'm watching The Departed, I'm like, isn't John Hammon this movie? No,
Speaker 1: he's not even famous. When this movie came out to me,
Speaker 1: they're the same movie. They had the same vibe. However,
Speaker 1: I went to the premiere of the Town for some reason.
Speaker 1: It was at Fenway Park, and they made all of
Speaker 1: the students sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park and
Speaker 1: want to the town. But it was like on a
Speaker 1: small screen in the middle of the baseball field. Don't
Speaker 1: understand what the vision was because it was really hard
Speaker 1: to see the movie. But you were at a Way
Speaker 1: But I was at Fenway, I know. But it's also like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm from here, I don't care. Who cares? I don't care.
Speaker 1: Wait park, it's historical, it's amazing, Green Monster. I worked
Speaker 1: at a bagels shop across from Fenway Park, and I
Speaker 1: really grew to hate Red Sox fans with just a
Speaker 1: burning passion. They were so rude about their bagels. Finally,
Speaker 1: Whitey Bulger connection my aunt's father, who's not related to
Speaker 1: me because she's not actually my aunt, but my aunt's
Speaker 1: father was arrested twice because he looked a lot like
Speaker 1: Whitey Bulger, whoa, And so his neighbors called the cops
Speaker 1: on him. The bar tender at the bar he went
Speaker 1: to called the cops on him. Like he became sort
Speaker 1: of like a locally famous figure for always getting arrested
Speaker 1: for looking like Whitey Bulger. Anyways, may he rest in peace.
Speaker 5: I love that, And I also feel like one fourth
Speaker 5: of like the population of men of a certain age.
Speaker 4: I know he looked like Whitey Bulger.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, he looks like an old white guy.
Speaker 1: But I guess like the facial hair like it was
Speaker 1: all and he lived in the area as well, so
Speaker 1: they were like Whitey Bulger walks above us. But it
Speaker 1: was just mister Smith.
Speaker 5: And I guess that's like the thing about Whitey Bulger.
Speaker 5: It's not just Whitey Bulger. It's like the myth of
Speaker 5: Whitey Bulger that is so part yea of like the
Speaker 5: Boston lore for decades and decades, and how that's myth
Speaker 5: has changed, and how he's like shaped the myth about
Speaker 5: himself as well.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about the Frank Costello overlap, but
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: and talk about the movie let's do it.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. And we are back, and it's
Speaker 3: time for the recap. And I'm gonna give a little
Speaker 3: disclaimer on this recap, which is that I was mostly
Speaker 3: following the movie, but a lot of things happen in
Speaker 3: the movie that I don't understand why or how they happen,
Speaker 3: So I don't know how to just gribe a lot
Speaker 3: of what happens. So this recap might be a big
Speaker 3: mess and it might not make any sense. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Let's find out.
Speaker 1: This is a group project. We've got this.
Speaker 5: I'd say that this is like one of the challenges
Speaker 5: of the Departed. Like I've known two like close family
Speaker 5: members who can't tell, like Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 5: apart in this movie until like an hour in, So
Speaker 5: that can kind of be like a twist for some people.
Speaker 3: I don't have that problem. I am very very good
Speaker 3: at distinguishing those two boys. Okay, it's just the rest
Speaker 3: of the plot that I don't really know. If I understand.
Speaker 1: I think it's a haircut issue. For me. It's just
Speaker 1: like they just needed more. If you're going to cast
Speaker 1: two white guys, do you just give everyone a different
Speaker 1: haircut at least m Anyways, The Departed The Departed.
Speaker 3: So where in Boston, specifically South Boston aka Southy we
Speaker 3: meet Frank Costello played by Jack Nicholson. He is an
Speaker 3: Irish mob boss and he has this kid start working
Speaker 3: for him named Colin Sullivan. And the kid looks like
Speaker 3: he's going to grow up to be Matt Damon, and
Speaker 3: sure enough, cut to him as Matt Damon, and he
Speaker 3: is finishing his training to become a cop for the
Speaker 3: Massachusetts State Police Department. He's also being very homophobic when
Speaker 3: we first meet him.
Speaker 1: Well, don't forget, he's also big racist when we first
Speaker 1: beat him.
Speaker 3: He's being written Frank Costello's being very racist. Every character
Speaker 3: in this movie is very racist and or homophobic and
Speaker 3: or sexist.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Every possible stereotype around characters you see in movies
Speaker 1: from Boston are present in the first two minutes of
Speaker 1: this movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but like explicitly about like them saying like horrifically
Speaker 5: offensive things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dropping slurs.
Speaker 5: About like other races and genders. There's like nothing likable
Speaker 5: about Frank Costello at any point in this film, certainly not.
Speaker 4: Except for his suits.
Speaker 3: Times, except for when he wears a shirt that just
Speaker 3: says Irish on it and that we support.
Speaker 1: And it's just like, Frank, the Irish did not claim you.
Speaker 1: We don't claim you.
Speaker 3: Okay. So then we meet another cop, Billy Costigan, played
Speaker 3: by Leonardo DiCaprio. He is a kind of lowly state
Speaker 3: police officer. In fact, I don't think he ever finishes
Speaker 3: his training. He also got like a fourteen hundred on
Speaker 3: his SAT and he can quote Hawthorne and stuff, so
Speaker 3: we're like, okay, he's smart. Question mark. Anyway, his mother
Speaker 3: has just passed away, and that's something that I guess
Speaker 3: is important for us to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's based in truth,
Speaker 1: but like it's also just like okay, we also in
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes have a woman dies for the
Speaker 1: plot to be in even though it's like not it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessary.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The key thing about Leonardo is that he has two accents.
Speaker 4: He has his Southy like Boston accent, and then.
Speaker 5: He also from like the north Shore, like an upper
Speaker 5: class family like Gloucester, maybe marvel Head, and so he
Speaker 5: has he's a double guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he's a he's a class shifter. He's a
Speaker 1: sheep shifter.
Speaker 3: He's code switching. He is among Boston Boston class I
Speaker 3: mean kind of yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so he can turn the Boston accent on and
Speaker 5: off and it's like, oh, Leo, you actually do a
Speaker 5: pretty decent Boston accent.
Speaker 4: So that's a huge takeaway he.
Speaker 1: Does, which is also important in a worse Martin Scrazi movie,
Speaker 1: Shutter Island.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right. I need to rewatch that one.
Speaker 1: Once you know the twist. It's not as fun but
Speaker 1: still good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right. Then we meet some more cops. They
Speaker 3: are Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg, and I do just
Speaker 3: keep their actors' names throughout this recap, so sorry about that,
Speaker 3: but anyway, that's fine. They run the like undercover division
Speaker 3: of the Organized Crime Unit of the State Police Department,
Speaker 3: and Billy has a meeting with them, and they think
Speaker 3: that Billy is a good candidate to go undercover and
Speaker 3: infiltrate Frank Costello's crime family, basically become one of Frank's minions.
Speaker 1: Minions. Yes, I also wrote down Maybian overlap minion representation.
Speaker 3: So Frank Costello is grew and Billy is about to
Speaker 3: become like Kevin le Mignon. He wishes, he wishes he's
Speaker 3: maybe more of a steward or a bob. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. So much of this movie is just like
Speaker 1: the different leaders being like which guy is your guy?
Speaker 1: And everyone's just trying to figure out whose guy is
Speaker 1: whose guy?
Speaker 4: So much that's the plot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, where's the guy that?
Speaker 3: Which guy is the guy? Of the guy?
Speaker 1: I guess that's a lot of crime thrillers. Where's the guy?
Speaker 1: It's usually he's right here, he's standing right next to you.
Speaker 3: He's the guy you don't suspect because he's right in
Speaker 3: front of your face. Anyway. Okay, So Martin Sheen and
Speaker 3: Mark Wahlberg want Billy to go undercover and become a minion,
Speaker 3: and to be able to convincingly do that, Billy will
Speaker 3: have to be like, quote unquote fired from being a
Speaker 3: cop and do jail time for like an assaultant battery
Speaker 3: charge so that Costello won't suspect that Billy is still
Speaker 3: a cop. Meanwhile, Colin gets promoted to detective and he
Speaker 3: starts working under Alec Baldwin, who leads the organized crime division,
Speaker 3: but not the undercover part, so he doesn't know who's
Speaker 3: undercover and who's not, and that crime Division is targeting
Speaker 3: Frank Costello. They're trying to take him down. But wait
Speaker 3: a minute, Colin still works for Costello. I guess the
Speaker 3: idea is that Colin became a cop because Costello wanted
Speaker 3: someone on the inside to be his little spot.
Speaker 1: Yes, and because, like we've been saying for years, every
Speaker 1: movie is ultimately about fathers and sons. Yes, there is
Speaker 1: an element of both the Matt Damon and the DiCaprio
Speaker 1: characters that is like, is Jack Nicholson my dad?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I mean, at least I feel like this movie
Speaker 1: has something to say about that, which is, no, he's not.
Speaker 1: He's not your daddy, He's no one's daddy.
Speaker 3: Then the police find out about a robbery where these
Speaker 3: like military grade, super expensive micro processes were stolen.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, just when you think they're not gonna
Speaker 1: say it again, they say it again. I feel like
Speaker 1: every character says it, but it really just draws your attention.
Speaker 1: For me. I should have ranked who says micro processes
Speaker 1: the best most of it is just like, well, Mark
Speaker 1: Wahlberg says it the most and the best mm hmm.
Speaker 1: But Matt Damon gets one or two in there sure,
Speaker 1: and Sheen says it. If someone says it, everyone has
Speaker 1: to say it. I love it.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of how like the First Fast and
Speaker 1: the Furious is about like stealing DVD players. You're like,
Speaker 1: why this bizarre piece of dated technology?
Speaker 3: Anyway, So they know about this robbery and they know
Speaker 3: that Frank Costello and his minions are behind it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Billy does his jail time and then he is released,
Speaker 3: and then he gets to work on finding an inn
Speaker 3: with Costello by way of his like low level criminal
Speaker 3: cousin who is kind of vaguely connected to Costello. And
Speaker 3: then Billy finally meets Costello, who wants to know if
Speaker 3: Billy's still a cop. He's like beating his like broken
Speaker 3: hand about it to get him to confess, but Billy
Speaker 3: doesn't relent, and so Costello trusts him and lets him
Speaker 3: become a minion. Meanwhile, Billy keeps reporting to Martin Sheen
Speaker 3: and Mark Wahlberg. They're still trying to nail Costello for
Speaker 3: this micropross us or robbery. Then one of Costello's minions,
Speaker 3: but like a very important minion. In fact, this might
Speaker 3: be Kevin le Mignon.
Speaker 1: This is Kevin, Yeah, this is.
Speaker 3: Actually no, Kevin is probably mister French. This is another
Speaker 3: guy he gets arrested, so Colin is like, Colin knows
Speaker 3: the cops are about to raid one of like Frank's
Speaker 3: crime spots.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, this is a good scene where Matt Damon
Speaker 5: lies to everyone.
Speaker 3: I do not understand what's happening, but basically he does
Speaker 3: this sneaky thing where he like warns Costello about the raid,
Speaker 3: but it makes it look like he's doing his cop job.
Speaker 4: Well, but like he's playing both sides.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he shows he's playing both sides, so he pretends
Speaker 5: to be the guy's lawyer, so he makes it it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: While all of this stuff is happening, Colin has met
Speaker 3: and has started dating Madeline played by Vera Farmiga. She
Speaker 3: is a psychiatrist who I don't know if she specifically
Speaker 3: works with the police department, but she has a lot
Speaker 3: of clients who are cops.
Speaker 1: Yeah fair for Meca's character is so interesting also because
Speaker 1: it's like I guess that she the source material that
Speaker 1: this is or one of the pieces of source material
Speaker 1: is a Hong Kong action movie where her character is two.
Speaker 3: Women, mm, which makes more sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's done away with in favor of
Speaker 1: making this very boring love triangle that I don't care about.
Speaker 1: And also, why have two women when you could have
Speaker 1: one fewer? Question mark?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: But it's just I was like, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: that more cops should be a therapy, but that I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can talk about it. Yeah, but anyway, So
Speaker 3: Colin has started dating her, but you know who else
Speaker 3: has started seeing Madeline at first in a psychiatrist's client capacity.
Speaker 3: It's Billy Costigan.
Speaker 1: Oops.
Speaker 3: Oops.
Speaker 1: She also couldn't tell the difference between DiCaprio and Damon,
Speaker 1: so she's just like, are you my boyfriend? I have
Speaker 1: face blind its yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: So Billy does not know that Colin is in cahoots
Speaker 3: with Costello, and Colin does not know that Billy is undercover.
Speaker 3: He just knows that Billy is one of Costello's new
Speaker 3: guys new Minions.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's like Auto basically right from my Minion heads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even know that one, so I'm a
Speaker 3: fake fan.
Speaker 1: He's new, he's new, don't worry about it anyway.
Speaker 3: So, at this point, Billy has been undercover for a year.
Speaker 3: He's getting very anxious, but Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg
Speaker 3: need more time to build their case against Costello. They
Speaker 3: also suspect that Costello has a spy in the police force,
Speaker 3: but they don't know that it's Colin Sullivan. Then Alec
Speaker 3: Baldwin sets up this like bust to try to get
Speaker 3: Costello as he's selling the microprocessors and Colin is secretly
Speaker 3: texting Costello information, Billy is secretly texting Martin Sheen information,
Speaker 3: and ultimately the cops are not able to bust Costello
Speaker 3: during this transaction and from this and I don't understand
Speaker 3: how because I don't know how crime works, and I
Speaker 3: don't know how cops work. But Billy is able to
Speaker 3: confirm that there is a rat in the police department,
Speaker 3: so he and Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg get to
Speaker 3: work on figuring out who it is. Meanwhile, Madeline has
Speaker 3: transferred Billy to another psychiatrist, so he asks her out
Speaker 3: for coffee and they go to coffee and she's talking
Speaker 3: about her boyfriend.
Speaker 5: After like crushing her into like giving him pills. So
Speaker 5: that's like that's how the romance starts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then she does it to prove she's not
Speaker 1: like other psychiatrists. I'm like, this is not this is
Speaker 1: not how you do your job. The only woman we
Speaker 1: know and she's bad at her job. Great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Oh then Costello like a girlfriend surprisingly like at
Speaker 5: the end too, she.
Speaker 3: Has I couldn't tell if those were multiple girlfriends or
Speaker 3: if it was just one woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't matter, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: He's very sexist to all of them, whoever they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's an equal opportunity misogynist. He will be horrible
Speaker 1: to anyone. True anyway. So they're out for coffee, Madeline
Speaker 1: and Billy, and she's talking about her boyfriend, who Billy
Speaker 1: does not know is Colin, So there's another level of like,
Speaker 1: who is this guy?
Speaker 4: And he doesn't know who Colin is either, right.
Speaker 3: Not yet at least. Then Costello calls Colin to be like,
Speaker 3: I'm getting the feeling like one of my minions is
Speaker 3: an undercover cop below, and Colin agrees, and he wants
Speaker 3: Costello to give him the real names and social security
Speaker 3: numbers of all the guys in his crew so that
Speaker 3: Colin can like run them through the cop database or something.
Speaker 3: And then Billy learns from some guy who we haven't
Speaker 3: seen before and we won't see again. That Costello is
Speaker 3: actually a protected FBI informant and that's why he never
Speaker 3: gets busted. And Billy is like, wait what, And Billy
Speaker 3: relays this information to Martin Sheen and throws this whole
Speaker 3: wrench in the situation. Then Billy shows up at Madeleine's
Speaker 3: house and suddenly they're making out and they have sex,
Speaker 3: even though she's still with Colin and now living with him.
Speaker 4: But she has doubts, she has doubts.
Speaker 1: She has such doubts fair enough, because he's like, I
Speaker 1: don't want a picture of you as a child at
Speaker 1: my apartment.
Speaker 3: In our living room.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I was like, what, Okay, he's not a great boyfriend, so,
Speaker 5: like you can kind of I understand why she might
Speaker 5: want somebody else but.
Speaker 4: Her client who hassles her or pills.
Speaker 3: You know, there's question not a better option.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't care that she cheats on him. I
Speaker 1: just care how she cheats on him.
Speaker 3: And with whom. Yeah, and it's someone who's basically just
Speaker 3: as bad. Yeah, ain't that just the way true? Anyway?
Speaker 3: So Alec Baldwin signs calling the duty of investigating the
Speaker 3: like organized Crime Division to find out who the rat is.
Speaker 3: He he's the rat, and so he's like, Okay, sure
Speaker 3: I'll find him. JK. Then there's this little meeting at
Speaker 3: a porn theater between Costello and Colin. Billy is there
Speaker 3: lurking in the background in secret. He's trying to figure
Speaker 3: out who the rat is.
Speaker 1: It feels like a priest and a rabbi joke, like
Speaker 1: that whole seed is like a Jack Nicholson, a Leonardo DiCaprio,
Speaker 1: and a Matt Damon all enter a porn theater like
Speaker 1: it's just and they don't even bother to put like
Speaker 1: a fourth person in there. It's just them. I love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kind of like a metaphor for the whole movie. Really.
Speaker 1: I think I was like at that point in this
Speaker 1: viewing room, I'm like, yeah, this movie's pretty silly.
Speaker 3: It's kind of sillier than people give it credit for it. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 3: So Colin has this envelope with all of the names
Speaker 3: and social security numbers of Costello's crews because he's trying
Speaker 3: to figure out who the mole is. Billy follows Colin.
Speaker 3: He's trying to id him, but he loses Colin before
Speaker 3: he can identify him. So Billy still doesn't know that
Speaker 3: the rat is Colin, and Colin, who knows someone was
Speaker 3: following him, still doesn't know that the mole is Billy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So like Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio have this like
Speaker 5: really charged relationship, Yeah, but.
Speaker 4: They don't know who the other person is.
Speaker 3: Right at the same time, and so the tension is
Speaker 3: mounting about it. And then Colin is trying to still
Speaker 3: figure out for Costello who the undercover cop is, and
Speaker 3: for reasons that I totally definitely understand, he doesn't suspect Billy,
Speaker 3: but he does suspect Martin Sheen. So now he has
Speaker 3: everyone tailing Martin Sheen and Costello's minions throw him off
Speaker 3: of a building and he dies, and then there's this
Speaker 3: big shootout between the mob boys and the cops, the.
Speaker 1: Shot where Martin she basically explodes again like it's gross.
Speaker 1: I'm sure physics to some extent bears that out, but
Speaker 1: again you're just like, it's silly, it's silly.
Speaker 3: It's silly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like slapstick gruesome.
Speaker 5: So that's like the next yeah, the next turn, it's
Speaker 5: like it's kind of.
Speaker 4: Like a slapstick horror.
Speaker 5: Yeah film in some ways, and in that way, it's like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's kind of is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I, yeah, I feel like some of
Speaker 1: the violence in this movie is so over the top
Speaker 1: and visceral. And then sometimes it's like and here's Martin
Speaker 1: Sheen and he's gonna explode. Basically you're like, oh, okay.
Speaker 4: I guess not a lot of nuance.
Speaker 3: Not much. No, So then Colin gets access to Martin
Speaker 3: Sheen's like burner phone and stuff. He also learns that
Speaker 3: Costello is an FBI informant, and with the burner phone,
Speaker 3: he calls Billy and they're both like, who is this
Speaker 3: because they still don't know. And then that night the
Speaker 3: cops go after Costello. There's another bigger shootout, and this
Speaker 3: time Costello gets shot and killed by Colin because he's like,
Speaker 3: you're an informant, boo, you're not my dad exactly, yeah, truly.
Speaker 3: Then the cops are like, wow, good job, buddy, you
Speaker 3: got his ass. And so after that, Colin and Billy
Speaker 3: have a little chat and in the same moment they
Speaker 3: each discover that the other one is the rat. Billy
Speaker 3: by seeing the envelope Colin just by virtue of like
Speaker 3: seeing him and knowing that he's the one guy who
Speaker 3: would have been the undercover cop.
Speaker 1: I think he responded to his call right like yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's not until he.
Speaker 5: His handler's gone, and so now, like Martin Sheen would
Speaker 5: have been his only like contact.
Speaker 3: The office, right, So when he shows up at the
Speaker 3: police department, he's like, oh, that's the guy.
Speaker 4: And for some reason, he doesn't think to go to
Speaker 4: Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 3: Because Mark Wahlberg was so agro that he quit Slash
Speaker 3: got fired, so he's not there right now.
Speaker 4: So I miss that. Okay, Mark Wolberg is fired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, Alec Baldwin's like take a two week
Speaker 3: leave of absence, and then Mark Wahlberg's like, fuck you,
Speaker 3: I quit. That's why he's not around for.
Speaker 4: Now, got it, But wait, but wait.
Speaker 3: A minute, he'll come back anyway. So Colin, because he
Speaker 3: now realizes that Billy Costigan is the undercover guy, he
Speaker 3: deletes all records that Billy was ever a cop to
Speaker 3: I guess protect Colin's is whatever something. And then Billy
Speaker 3: runs away and he goes to Madeleine to give her
Speaker 3: a different envelope, and he tells her to open it
Speaker 3: if anything happens to him. Meanwhile, Madeleine says to Colin, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm Gregnant, and he's.
Speaker 1: Like, what, Yeah, Checkov's Greg.
Speaker 3: Check offs Greg Chekhov's envelope. There's all kinds of stuff
Speaker 3: going on here. Then Billy blackmails Colin with audio recordings
Speaker 3: that Costello had recorded because he was like recording everything. Basically,
Speaker 3: Costella was like, I want to have a podcast. I
Speaker 3: want to be recording my voice all the time. So
Speaker 3: Madeline listens to the recording and so now she knows
Speaker 3: that her boyfriend Colin is a slimy little rat.
Speaker 1: Whoops. She also listens to it, just like a very
Speaker 1: two thousand and six detail of this movie is she
Speaker 1: listens to the CD on a gigantic entertainment center with headphones.
Speaker 1: Really beautiful.
Speaker 3: It was beautiful. So then Billy arrests Colin, but before
Speaker 3: he can bring him in, another cop shoots and kills Billy.
Speaker 3: And this other cop is another one of Costello's minions
Speaker 3: who he had on the inside. But then Colin shoots
Speaker 3: him so as to erase any evidence that Colin was
Speaker 3: another one of Costello's like inside rat guys, I think
Speaker 3: question Mark, and he thinks he's safe. Colin does until
Speaker 3: he goes home and Mark Wahlberg is in his apartment
Speaker 3: and he shoots and kills Colin because I guess that
Speaker 3: Madeleine had opened the envelope and went to Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 3: But we don't see that on screen. And I'm just
Speaker 3: speculating the end.
Speaker 5: Somehow, Mark Wahlberg has figured.
Speaker 1: It all out.
Speaker 3: He's figured it out.
Speaker 1: Talk about a movie contrivance, having Mark Wahlberg display signs
Speaker 1: of human intelligence, right.
Speaker 5: Put it out a Boston crime book here, Jamie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Mark Wahlberg is just I feel like,
Speaker 1: also our Boston mascots that the media has selected are
Speaker 1: generally not great people. Why can't Jenny Slat be the
Speaker 1: state representative, right, someone who hasn't committed of race crime,
Speaker 1: hate crimes.
Speaker 5: And stuff, which makes the language in this film all
Speaker 5: the more uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, And.
Speaker 1: We don't have to get into this too much, but
Speaker 1: like the same way that like, Mark Wahlberg is just
Speaker 1: letting home homophobic slurs rip and also he has done
Speaker 1: that in interviews and you know all this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to say really quickly because we just covered
Speaker 1: Goodfellas on Newcomers. If you listen to Newcomers, We're going
Speaker 1: to be doing that in an upcoming episode of Theirs.
Speaker 1: So we just watched. We've been watching a lot of
Speaker 1: Martin Scorsese crime movies, that's true. I like that Martin
Speaker 1: Scarsese loves to have a famous guy walk into a
Speaker 1: room and die right away. I feel like there's parallels
Speaker 1: between the Joe Pesci oh no, oh no in Goodfellas,
Speaker 1: but then with Matt Damon, he walks into his own
Speaker 1: apartment and says, okay, okay, Yeah, I prefer Joe Pesci.
Speaker 3: But it's funnier. At the very least.
Speaker 5: Goodfellas is interesting because like want to be mom guys
Speaker 5: like read it and study Good Fellows like it's like
Speaker 5: their Bible. Right, They're like re enacting scenes from Goodfellas
Speaker 5: or like posting like they're Goodfellas. They're like quoting Goodfellas.
Speaker 5: So that's an important film in another way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not, unlike the way I watched The Departed to
Speaker 3: learn things for my own screenplay. We got to take
Speaker 3: another quick break and then we will come right back,
Speaker 3: and we're back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the context of where this movie is coming from.
Speaker 1: It's a little more complicated than I realized. I knew
Speaker 1: that it was pulling from and I know Susan that
Speaker 1: you know way more about this than either of us do.
Speaker 1: I knew that it was pulling from The Winter Hill
Speaker 1: Gang and from Whitey Bulger Lore. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: this was an adaptation of a Hong Kong action movie
Speaker 1: called Internal Affairs. There's not too much to say about
Speaker 1: that other than the filmmakers of Internal Affairs were like,
Speaker 1: we liked The Departed, it was too long. It was
Speaker 1: the length of three movies, and you're just like dam
Speaker 1: and also mentioned that the Vera Formiga character, like we
Speaker 1: talked about before, is two characters both women in Internal Affairs,
Speaker 1: and that they were like, we don't really know why
Speaker 1: they made that change, but just for context. I just
Speaker 1: didn't realize this was an adaptation of a different movie.
Speaker 1: I thought it was just events.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that either.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well it makes it makes sense given that context
Speaker 5: and the writer. I actually it's William Monahan. He's like
Speaker 5: an All weekly writer. He's a dort Chester guy, and
Speaker 5: he's kind of a man of my own heart. He's
Speaker 5: like hyper into like Boston regionality, and I think he
Speaker 5: took that and then tried to fit that into this
Speaker 5: internal affair script pulling some of.
Speaker 4: The Whitey Bulger saga.
Speaker 1: But also it's like it's very, very different than what
Speaker 1: actually happened in Boston crime history. Yeah, I guess, Susan,
Speaker 1: is there anything that stands out to you as like
Speaker 1: worthy of mention in terms of parallels between this movie
Speaker 1: and actual Boston crime history or is it mostly movie
Speaker 1: movie history gobbledyep cook kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: Well, I guess my biggest take, So Whitey Bulger is
Speaker 5: this like South Boston mobster that usually when you think
Speaker 5: about the caricature of Boston crime movies, they're usually set in.
Speaker 4: Southie, up the town even Goodwill hunting.
Speaker 5: And he was this criminal who was busted for robbery
Speaker 5: at a younger age, sent to Alcatraz. The CIA actually
Speaker 5: like doped him with like tons of acid, which is
Speaker 5: another part.
Speaker 4: Of the story that usually gets like left out.
Speaker 5: I did not know he was literally part of like
Speaker 5: the MK Ultra experiment. So he comes back from prison
Speaker 5: and he's now like all like doped up, and his
Speaker 5: brother Billy meanwhile, has become this very powerful Boston politician.
Speaker 5: He was like the president of the Massachusetts State Senate
Speaker 5: for nineteen years. And there's a relationship between Whitey Bulger
Speaker 5: and members of law enforcement, specifically the FBI.
Speaker 4: So you have John Conley, who I.
Speaker 5: Think is the basis for the Colin Sullivan character Matt Damon,
Speaker 5: who knew Whitey Bulger when he was a kid, like
Speaker 5: Whitey bought him like an ice cream cone and like
Speaker 5: scared away his like bullies. But I don't think he
Speaker 5: has the same like longstanding connection to Whitey growing up.
Speaker 4: He does have a connection to Whitey's brother Billy though.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting.
Speaker 5: So here's a part of the like Whitey Bulger story
Speaker 5: that gets me really annoyed that we're not looking at
Speaker 5: it more. But Whitey Bulger's FBI handler, John Conley, got
Speaker 5: busted for basically being paid off by Whitey, like tipping
Speaker 5: him off the things, even being involved in murders. And
Speaker 5: he was busted, but his supervisor, the guy above him,
Speaker 5: got immunity, right, So there was never an investigation into
Speaker 5: like the people overseeing Conley or how deep the problem
Speaker 5: went into the FBI. It just stopped at John Conley,
Speaker 5: his boss got immunity for giving him up. And the
Speaker 5: White Bulger story, which you know, back in the day,
Speaker 5: there was this myth about White Bulger, which I think
Speaker 5: he put forth himself, that he was really this Robin
Speaker 5: Hood figure. He kept drugs out of the neighborhood and
Speaker 5: he didn't hurt women, which isn't true.
Speaker 4: He murdered women. But their next layer.
Speaker 5: Of that of like how deep the problem went, has
Speaker 5: never really been assessed. And I'm critical of stories that
Speaker 5: don't frame the deeper systemic problem. They just they paint
Speaker 5: like one really bad guy and that's the He's the
Speaker 5: one kind of raising the cops. It's not an issue
Speaker 5: with law enforcement.
Speaker 3: At large, I feel. And we can dive into this more,
Speaker 3: but to me, this movie perpetuates the myth of a
Speaker 3: police force might have one or two bad apples via
Speaker 3: you know, Colin being the corrupt cop who has this
Speaker 3: in with the mob, but that most of them are
Speaker 3: just doing their job and they're good guys actually and
Speaker 3: blah blah blah. And I take a lot of issue
Speaker 3: with that, obviously, and I feel like that's a pretty
Speaker 3: big component of this movie.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that we're that this is a Scorsese movie,
Speaker 1: and that it was like the movie he won his
Speaker 1: first Oscar for, and even like there's a quote from
Speaker 1: Scorsese about it that it's like kind of weird that
Speaker 1: this is the movie that he won his oscar for,
Speaker 1: because it's not even in his life top five of
Speaker 1: like his best movies. And I just think that like
Speaker 1: he's handled a lot of these themes that we're talking
Speaker 1: about being missed like way better in his body of work.
Speaker 1: So it just like ends up feeling a little dissonant.
Speaker 1: Where there's plenty of Martin Scorsese movies where there are
Speaker 1: cop and law enforcement characters and the movie is far
Speaker 1: more critical of them, And there's plenty of Martin Scorsese
Speaker 1: gangster movies where there's more shades of gray and complexity.
Speaker 1: But I feel like this movie just kind of gets
Speaker 1: like bogged down in the like I don't know, for me,
Speaker 1: it feels like the ultimate message is like any duplicitous
Speaker 1: person is gonna get.
Speaker 3: Killed or like they're gonna be departed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt like an oversimplified theme and like in
Speaker 1: service of that theme ends up bailing on a lot
Speaker 1: of the anti cop and anti establishment themes you see
Speaker 1: throughout Martin Scorsese's work, it's just like a weird one.
Speaker 1: I don't know, And the more I watch it, the
Speaker 1: more i'm you know, like there's certainly like moments where
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, that is critical of policing, but then
Speaker 1: it's always kind of scaled back to keep the through,
Speaker 1: whether it's like, well, actually we want you to focus
Speaker 1: on this love triangle that's not necessary now, or like
Speaker 1: we want you to focus on this, this, and this.
Speaker 1: It definitely seems to believe that, you know, law enforcement
Speaker 1: is more good than bad, and that part of the
Speaker 1: problem is that there's all these poor mobsters that are
Speaker 1: infiltrating law enforcement, Like that's the issue. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: will say that the fact that Frank ultimately working with
Speaker 1: law enforcement like that is a statement. It just I
Speaker 1: feel like in characters like the Martin Sheen character and
Speaker 1: the Mark Wahlberg character, like these are presented as like
Speaker 1: these are our good cops who want to do good things,
Speaker 1: and like Mark Wahlberg is so good that he gets fired.
Speaker 1: Like it's just I don't think it's like certainly not
Speaker 1: anywhere near the worst leaning into pro cop. I just
Speaker 1: it feels really muddled though for me in this.
Speaker 5: Movie, Well, if you're watching for the Boston accents alone,
Speaker 5: which is how I suggest watching this movie, I think
Speaker 5: another point of context is at the time, So Bulger
Speaker 5: was tipped off to a bust by his FBI handler
Speaker 5: in the nineties, and so he was on the lamb
Speaker 5: for sixteen years and he wasn't arrested until two thousand
Speaker 5: and eleven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he could have seen The Departed in theaters.
Speaker 4: Oh, he absolutely did.
Speaker 5: He wasn't busted until then, So there still was this
Speaker 5: element of mystery surrounding the story of this Boston Irish
Speaker 5: gangster who was able to infiltrate local cops and the FBI.
Speaker 5: So I think there's that's part of the intrigue. And also, again,
Speaker 5: like I said, it's just the boys really go in
Speaker 5: on their Boston accents. I think that's really what the
Speaker 5: movie is about at the end.
Speaker 3: Of the day, It's really about that largely.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And Mark Wahlberg is also like very specifically his accent
Speaker 5: is Dorchester like, so he gets to represent that and
Speaker 5: really really go in.
Speaker 1: Before we get into our one woman, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to shout out one of my favorite character actors is
Speaker 1: in this movie. Mister Kevin Corrigan. Oh yes, he plays
Speaker 1: the cousin.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, one plays a dirt bag like mister Kevin Corgan.
Speaker 1: He's not from Boston, He's from the Bronx. But I
Speaker 1: was just like revisiting Kevin Corrigan's resume and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to It's really fun to just read out his
Speaker 1: character names, one right after the other, because he is
Speaker 1: certainly typed. I just want to share a few. Jimmy Stella, Tella,
Speaker 1: Frankie Spivak, Finn garrety Zlas Losowski, Flossy, Sean Garretty, Titus A. Moatto, Smitty,
Speaker 1: Kevin Milkshake, what Jackie Moreno, Jimmy Pearson, Master Thief, Declan Sullivan, Venerio,
Speaker 1: Vincent Bishop. Like it's this guy plays a type and
Speaker 1: he plays I love Kevin Corey. He was on this
Speaker 1: sitcom I watched when I was a kid called Grounded
Speaker 1: for Life, and he played dirt bag uncle. And apparently
Speaker 1: that resonated with me because I'm always really happy to
Speaker 1: see him.
Speaker 5: Yeah. There are some like fairly good like Boston scenes,
Speaker 5: Like so that's one scene with Leo when they're on
Speaker 5: the couch and Leo's like, you know, I'm not a cup,
Speaker 5: I'm your cousin, and.
Speaker 1: You must be my cousin.
Speaker 5: Shit, Like they're like, oh, that is like a very accurate,
Speaker 5: like southyst scene of that time.
Speaker 1: Speaking from experience, cousins from Boston can be real pieces
Speaker 1: of shit, It's true. Okay, let's talk about the one woman.
Speaker 3: Yes. Well, first, I'll say that something that I think
Speaker 3: is kind of interesting about this movie is that there's
Speaker 3: this motif I suppose throughout the movie about like male feelings,
Speaker 3: and that comes by way of the Madaline character being
Speaker 3: a mental health professional. Yeah, so I want to talk
Speaker 3: a little bit more about like the male feelings of
Speaker 3: it all. But yes, for Madeleine, I mean, classic case
Speaker 3: of the movie has exactly one woman in it. She
Speaker 3: to me, doesn't really feel like a real person or
Speaker 3: a real psychiatrist. Like the way she does her job
Speaker 3: is very questionable. She starts dating Colin, and I had
Speaker 3: a very hard time suspending my disbelief that a mental
Speaker 3: health professional would fall in love with this like emotionally
Speaker 3: repressed cop, especially because a lot of the clients she
Speaker 3: sees are emotionally repressed cops.
Speaker 5: He knows her, he gets her, He knows that he lies.
Speaker 5: He's able to read her in this way that nobody
Speaker 5: else does. And she has a past, but it doesn't
Speaker 5: matter what it is, because she's like, let's keep it
Speaker 5: about you.
Speaker 3: Oh well, no, that's her and Billy. I'm talking about
Speaker 3: her in Colin because she starts dating both of them,
Speaker 3: question Mark and both of them. I don't know why
Speaker 3: she's into them.
Speaker 5: West the elevator banter, and also like she doesn't have a.
Speaker 4: Thick Boston accent.
Speaker 5: I know he does, and I think that's part of
Speaker 5: like the tough boy like.
Speaker 4: I think there's some sort of element there as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's definitely bad at her job. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of therapists who are irresponsible. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: therapists who have fucked their clients. However, this is the
Speaker 1: one therapist we see in the movie, as well as
Speaker 1: the one woman, and so it just feels like it's
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that at least it is plot relevant
Speaker 1: at least once of what like her job is, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like you're just told, like she teachs
Speaker 1: first grade and that, but it doesn't actually matter. She
Speaker 1: could do anything, Like it is relevant what she's doing,
Speaker 1: but not for very long, like after a while, and Susan,
Speaker 1: you're totally right. I feel like there's multiple points in
Speaker 1: the movie where she is set up to share more
Speaker 1: about herself and then it doesn't happen. It's really weird
Speaker 1: to me, and it's always like in service of no, actually,
Speaker 1: let's talk about because this movie obviously has a gigantic
Speaker 1: interest in like the three main men's background, and it
Speaker 1: feels really egregious that like there's no interest in why
Speaker 1: she's doing what she's doing. When she's asked, she's just like,
Speaker 1: I just want to make a different, like just very vague.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that's why keeping her as a therapist
Speaker 5: is so convenient, because there's no we don't need to
Speaker 5: figure out anything else about her. Is just like a
Speaker 5: female character that has a love interest on the elevator.
Speaker 5: What we learn about her really just serves to prove
Speaker 5: that Leonardo DiCaprio's character is like smart and is able
Speaker 5: to read people.
Speaker 4: And yeah, so I.
Speaker 5: Think that there's nothing about her own personal background that
Speaker 5: really is relevant to this plot and the way that
Speaker 5: it's written.
Speaker 1: I mean, and also, like smart women date pieces of
Speaker 1: shit all the time, right, But again, this is our
Speaker 1: one woman that we have, and like, the only reason
Speaker 1: we're to believe that she's going to go for DiCaprio
Speaker 1: is because he cares that she was a child once.
Speaker 1: But Matt Damon is like, I don't care that you're
Speaker 1: a child. Get that shit out of my face. It's
Speaker 1: just like, so everything with her is unbelievably vague.
Speaker 3: It's so bizarre, yeah, to the point where, like, you know,
Speaker 3: another motif of this movie is like lying and honesty
Speaker 3: versus dishonesty. And there's that scene where I think it's
Speaker 3: the first scene where Billy goes to see Madeline as
Speaker 3: like a client psychiatrist relationship, and he's like, well, what
Speaker 3: about you?
Speaker 1: Do you lie?
Speaker 3: And she's like saying something kind of vague, but she's
Speaker 3: implying that she does, or that everyone does. And then
Speaker 3: later on, when she finds out that her boyfriend Colin
Speaker 3: is the rat, she's like and I thought I was
Speaker 3: the liar, And I'm like, what are we even talking
Speaker 3: about here? What have you lied about?
Speaker 5: And what?
Speaker 1: I think that that's probably a reference to the fact
Speaker 1: that she's been cheating.
Speaker 3: On him, cheating, right, which also, again I do not
Speaker 3: understand why she finds Billy alluring because she has no
Speaker 3: idea that he's working undercover. I'm pretty sure she just
Speaker 3: thinks that he used to be a cop in training
Speaker 3: and then was let go from the force because of
Speaker 3: this like assault and battery charge.
Speaker 4: So, like, just.
Speaker 3: Imagine that you're a psychiatrist and you have a client
Speaker 3: who seems to be a violent offender, you know, stuff
Speaker 3: like that, who doesn't seem to be able to process
Speaker 3: or regulate his emotions very well, and who screamed at
Speaker 3: you during one of your appointments, and then he shows
Speaker 3: up at your house randomly one night, and then you,
Speaker 3: as the psychiatrist, are like, yes, I should have sex
Speaker 3: with this person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, by Caitlyn, he cares that she was a
Speaker 1: girl once.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, sorry I forgot you.
Speaker 1: See, she was left with no choice. I honestly didn't
Speaker 1: because this movie gets so like YadA YadA in the
Speaker 1: movie way. It didn't even connect to me. I was like, oh, yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: why would she assume that he had participated in the
Speaker 1: plot of The Departed? I guess I don't have that answer.
Speaker 3: Right, because the whole plot is happening outside of she
Speaker 3: does her purview, right, She's at work.
Speaker 5: We know that she has issues, we just like aren't
Speaker 5: really supposed to care what they are, and the fact
Speaker 5: that Leo is kind of intuitive about that is what
Speaker 5: makes him so attractive.
Speaker 4: I did think it was interesting.
Speaker 5: So you have the elevator banter with Matt Damon and
Speaker 5: then they'd go on the date and he immediately.
Speaker 4: Like nags her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's like, who says like I would want to
Speaker 5: go on a date with you, and then she gets
Speaker 5: like nervous and then tries to prove herself. So I
Speaker 5: did feel like that was at least like accurate to
Speaker 5: some of what Yeah, the situation would have been.
Speaker 1: Sure, it's not much, but it's like I am glad
Speaker 1: that she bails on him at the end, Like at
Speaker 1: least it wasn't like, all right, let's make this work,
Speaker 1: like no best of luck to her and maybe she
Speaker 1: should possibly change professions. There were elements that it's like
Speaker 1: they go out of the way to show us that
Speaker 1: he is not a good partner, and she eventually does
Speaker 1: leave him. I feel like you don't get that in
Speaker 1: most movies, and also in a lot of Martin Scarsese movies.
Speaker 1: But again, I think I'm just responding to just having
Speaker 1: watched Goodfellas, where ironically the female lead and Goodfellas does
Speaker 1: not leave her partner. But we understand why there are
Speaker 1: other Scorsese crime movies that do have a vested interest
Speaker 1: in the women that appear in this world and they're
Speaker 1: you know, humanized, and even if it's not what you
Speaker 1: would do in this situation, you do understand. And like
Speaker 1: she's given narrative importance, and then in the case of Goodfellas,
Speaker 1: like whole sequences that she is narrating that are directly
Speaker 1: from her perspective, and you just like don't get anywhere
Speaker 1: near that. With Vera Fremige's character, we don't know anything
Speaker 1: about her, Susan, You're totally right where it's like we're
Speaker 1: told that she has a past that means maybe she
Speaker 1: would be more vulnerable towards pieces of shit like this,
Speaker 1: but we.
Speaker 5: Don't know why her character is there to serve the
Speaker 5: plot points of the men. Yeah, for sure, there's no
Speaker 5: other point about her as a character, and I think
Speaker 5: it's telling at the very end of the movie, like
Speaker 5: the final scene we learned the name of Frank Costello's
Speaker 5: girlfriend's when like Matt Damon calls up when when and
Speaker 5: the fact that we just there's this character and we
Speaker 5: have no idea what her name is even except for
Speaker 5: the point is to like announce Frank Costello's death to somebody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like worse than if there was no
Speaker 1: character introduced there. It's like, how dare you tell me
Speaker 1: that this woman is important for one second.
Speaker 5: That's another one of my beefs with a lot of
Speaker 5: like mafia narratives, is there's no woman's voice in.
Speaker 4: It at all.
Speaker 5: True crime is often ascribed to women. It's like a
Speaker 5: woman's interest. But I think it's interesting that for some reason,
Speaker 5: organized crime mob movies don't fit into the category that
Speaker 5: we think of when you typically think of true crime.
Speaker 5: I love like stories about female criminals and like the
Speaker 5: actual impact that they've had. I talked to the daughter
Speaker 5: of a local leader in Newton Watertown area, and the
Speaker 5: book I think Leah Carrol's book Down the City where
Speaker 5: her mother was murdered by the mob, is also like
Speaker 5: a fascinating book if you're looking for like female voices
Speaker 5: in mob stories, because they are you.
Speaker 4: W and far between.
Speaker 1: I feel like almost in every single genre that is
Speaker 1: marketed at men, there were almost always people of all
Speaker 1: genders involved, but the stories don't reflect that.
Speaker 4: Right. Then you have the other thing you have in
Speaker 4: film noir.
Speaker 5: You have the batal where the woman is really powerful
Speaker 5: and is like the source of all that goes wrong.
Speaker 5: She's really sexually charged. She gets you into a lot
Speaker 5: of trouble, you may die, but somehow you don't work
Speaker 5: ret being with her. So that's either the female character
Speaker 5: is like supremely evil and kind of like an emotionally
Speaker 5: manipulative mastermind, or she's just not in the story at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, put on the sidelines to go back to Madeline
Speaker 3: really quick. I just could not get over the scene
Speaker 3: where Billy shows up at her house and he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: sorry if this is inappropriate, and she's like, no, it's
Speaker 3: not inappropriate. You're not a client anymore. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's still stalking you. He did show up at your
Speaker 3: house in the middle of the night. How does he
Speaker 3: even know where you live? Why is he showing up
Speaker 3: unannounced in the night in the rain? Like and then
Speaker 3: why did you have sex with him? After that?
Speaker 1: I think that this is we have to talk about
Speaker 1: it in a while, and I do need to rename it.
Speaker 1: But like let's bouschemy test this so many scenes in
Speaker 1: this movie. It only works because Leonardo DiCaprio is doing
Speaker 1: it and it's young DiCaprio who's going to turn him away.
Speaker 1: You're like, if you swap that out with just a guy,
Speaker 1: she would have called the police.
Speaker 5: The reason her character works is because this is a
Speaker 5: film about this charge relationship between like Leo and Matt Damon,
Speaker 5: who are like two young.
Speaker 1: Men they should just kiss and call it a day,
Speaker 1: like looking for.
Speaker 5: Their daddies in all the wrong places, and that she's
Speaker 5: really they don't know who they the one another is,
Speaker 5: or even the one another exists for a while, but
Speaker 5: she's a connecting point between those two characters. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: I think that's the only purpose that her character really serves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's tricky because it's like the Jamie of
Speaker 1: ten years ago whose brain didn't well worked both better
Speaker 1: and worse depending on the situation. Sure, like would be
Speaker 1: like why aren't there any women cops in this which
Speaker 1: is like a valid question because the boss and police
Speaker 1: department has more women and more people of color than
Speaker 1: is reflected in this movie. Right, But it's not like
Speaker 1: I was like, where's my girl? Boss? Cop.
Speaker 4: Women are murdered in this movie.
Speaker 1: Well, women are murdered or mocked. I feel like outside
Speaker 1: of any other woman you see who is not Vera
Speaker 1: for Meiga. And this also feels like kind of class
Speaker 1: charged as well, where there's you know, men across the
Speaker 1: class spectrum that get at least some characterization in this movie.
Speaker 1: Definitely not true for women because we only have one
Speaker 1: and she went to Harvard. This is the only women
Speaker 1: we're really sort of like asked to consider or respect
Speaker 1: even though we know nothing about her. And most of
Speaker 1: the other women we see are either poor and there
Speaker 1: to talk to Matt Damon or DiCaprio for a scene
Speaker 1: to give them information, and they're kind of like dressing characters,
Speaker 1: or they're sex workers that Jack Nicholson is throwing something
Speaker 1: at and bossing around and treating poorly and so like
Speaker 1: that's it's kind of it. Or they're murdered in one
Speaker 1: kid like but it's like there's just so little Well.
Speaker 5: That's also like part of this movie is about class
Speaker 5: to some extent. Yeah, I think that's the way that
Speaker 5: you're supposed to sympathize with Matt Damon's character is that
Speaker 5: he grows up poor without a father, and he's like
Speaker 5: getting out of the southeast rough Southee neighborhood, right, and
Speaker 5: then Leo grows up confused because he's like code switching.
Speaker 1: Am I rich? Am I poor?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: Am I?
Speaker 5: Yeah? And then she's like went to Harvard, which is
Speaker 5: again another part of the Boston area story that they're
Speaker 5: trying to hit all the different kinds of Boston accents
Speaker 5: in this film, and I think they do come.
Speaker 4: Close to that.
Speaker 1: I like that Susan's like, let's bring it back to
Speaker 1: the accents. Let's talk about what matters.
Speaker 5: There's something in this movie that I think, like, oh,
Speaker 5: why would you watch this movie? I think it would
Speaker 5: be for like Boston accents.
Speaker 1: For sure, And to hear Rockton said, oh no, but
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean, I think the class stuff in
Speaker 1: this movie I feel like is one of the better
Speaker 1: handled or at least like considered things, because I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes it kind of gets lost in the weeds.
Speaker 1: But like with the Matt Damon character, I think it
Speaker 1: is like an interesting and like salient point that like
Speaker 1: Scorsese is equipped to talk about of, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to die in the class you
Speaker 1: were born in America, What are the moral compromises that
Speaker 1: you're going to be asked? And so like Matt, Damon
Speaker 1: is like trying to hold down his credibility where he's from,
Speaker 1: but also clearly wants, you know, like a nice apartment
Speaker 1: in the back bay, which you cannot achieve through moral channels.
Speaker 1: I've checked. It's not possible.
Speaker 3: You have to have ties to the mob to award it.
Speaker 1: But I do think, like from a class perspective, with
Speaker 1: our main characters, this movie has a little or to
Speaker 1: say than it does about like justice or sort of
Speaker 1: other things that's trying to tackle.
Speaker 5: At least.
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 3: male feelings motif.
Speaker 1: Because boy feelings, boy feelings, I.
Speaker 3: Wish the movie had explored it more thoughtfully. It like
Speaker 3: kind of touches on it, but it doesn't have anything
Speaker 3: that meaningful to say about it.
Speaker 1: Another waste of the therapist character, because you're like, we're
Speaker 1: set up for boy feelings and then we don't really
Speaker 1: get at least not through her, we don't really get
Speaker 1: boy feelings.
Speaker 5: Well, Damon does have a lot of complicated feelings about Fireman.
Speaker 3: You know that he has very homophobic feelings about them.
Speaker 4: Specifically, especially he has some of the public feelings.
Speaker 5: At the same time, he's like literally like has a
Speaker 5: very like subservient relationship to Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 4: There is this like male connection between two of them.
Speaker 1: That like very very so.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't really think there's a ton of
Speaker 5: insight to put on the language.
Speaker 4: The slurs that they use, because they really do overdo it.
Speaker 5: And that's not to deny Boston's history of racism at all,
Speaker 5: but I do think there is if you're searching for
Speaker 5: male feelings. Is like anguish about like firefighters that he
Speaker 5: addresses like primarily using bublic slurs, is like, okay, maybe
Speaker 5: there's some there to unpack.
Speaker 3: Which of the movie doesn't really bother doing. I think
Speaker 3: the closest it comes to, like trying to say anything
Speaker 3: is that it's implied that he's experiencing a rectile dysfunction.
Speaker 3: In one scene with Madeleine where she's like, do you
Speaker 3: want to talk about last night? Colin No response, Madeleine,
Speaker 3: It's all right. Guys tend to make too big a
Speaker 3: deal of it. Colin No response, Madeleine, It's actually quite common, Colin.
Speaker 3: I gotta go to work. And then he leaves, and
Speaker 3: then in a later scene with Alec Baldwin where he's
Speaker 3: talking to him about how it's like good for a
Speaker 3: man's image to be married, and Alec Baldwin's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it lets people know that you have a dick that works,
Speaker 3: and Colin's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my dick.
Speaker 3: It totally works, and in fact it's working overtime.
Speaker 1: It's the workingest one.
Speaker 4: I talk about that dicks a lot.
Speaker 5: Like the first word that kinds out of Mark Wahlberg's
Speaker 5: mouth is about like a child's genitalia.
Speaker 4: It's bad. It's bad.
Speaker 1: It does feel like over the top playing into regional stereotypes.
Speaker 1: While it is also true that people like that do exist,
Speaker 1: but in the world of this movie, every single person
Speaker 1: is like my dick, my dick, my dick, throw a
Speaker 1: phone in a woman's head, and it.
Speaker 5: Seems like they're kind of enjoying themselves while they're saying
Speaker 5: these things. And that's what really gives me concern, especially
Speaker 5: one of the points of the movie where they show
Speaker 5: like an Asian cart tell, and the fact that the
Speaker 5: takeaway with the Asian cartel is that they're more violent, and.
Speaker 4: They keep going about, oh, this is America that really
Speaker 4: it was off.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not accurate either, No, historically, yeah, of weapons
Speaker 5: of choice, Yeah it's not.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, he's like, in America, having a gun, we
Speaker 3: don't feel like that, you know, adds inches to your dick.
Speaker 3: And it's like, that's absolutely what so many Americans think
Speaker 3: about gun ownership. So I don't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: And that's how everyone in the movie is acting like ridiculous.
Speaker 4: There's no accuracy to that.
Speaker 5: There's no point of the story that somehow, like the
Speaker 5: Asian gangsters are more violent than the horrific violence that
Speaker 5: we see in the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially because it's it's not even a cartel. They're
Speaker 3: like government workers in China, are they? I mean, who knows,
Speaker 3: that's what they'd say in the movie.
Speaker 5: But I definitely think that like Asian organized crime is
Speaker 5: part of like our criminal history in Boston. For sure,
Speaker 5: that's been completely overlooked. But it is not depicted accurately
Speaker 5: or sensitively here, right, or.
Speaker 1: Really at all, because it's just one scene and as usual,
Speaker 1: like Frank is dropping slurs and making broad statements about
Speaker 1: justice that are untrue, and like you don't even get
Speaker 1: the chance to really meet those characters who are just
Speaker 1: told things.
Speaker 5: About them, especially in a film with Mark Wahlberg, that
Speaker 5: makes me like easy, yeah, very very uneasy.
Speaker 4: Totally, And there is a real culture of saying these things.
Speaker 5: I listen to like hours of FBI recordings of this
Speaker 5: state police officer turned bookie like threatening death threats in
Speaker 5: this thing, and you hear these men basically talking like
Speaker 5: they are just constant talk about their genitalia and slurs.
Speaker 4: It certainly happens, but right.
Speaker 1: This is just like not a subtle, thoughtful movie. I
Speaker 1: think it's maybe just my main feeling about it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean as far as the rectile dysfunction thing, I
Speaker 1: think first of all, that like it just felt like
Speaker 1: thrown in there in a way that like just to
Speaker 1: justify shame and anger he was clearly already feeling, and like,
Speaker 1: this movie is not handled to say anything intelligent about
Speaker 1: that very real problem. I at least appreciate that she
Speaker 1: was like being kind about it, which I think most
Speaker 1: people are.
Speaker 5: We have one emotional be and it's still about his
Speaker 5: deck exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this movie works as far as like
Speaker 1: a movie about like what Catholic guilt and shame can
Speaker 1: do to people across the class spectrum, but only if
Speaker 1: they're already Irish men.
Speaker 3: I just think that there was so much more to
Speaker 3: say about, like men repressing their emotion and how that
Speaker 3: manifests in the world, and men seeking validation from other
Speaker 3: men and how that manifests. You see glimpses of it,
Speaker 3: and you see suggestions of these things, but I wish
Speaker 3: that had been a far greater theme or something that
Speaker 3: the movie explores more thoughtfully, because it's all right there,
Speaker 3: they're like mentioning it. But yeah, He's just like, but
Speaker 3: we don't really actually have that much to say about it,
Speaker 3: except that all these people are going to end up
Speaker 3: dead because they can't talk about their feelings.
Speaker 1: That's the wild thing. Yeah, it's like all the ingredients
Speaker 1: are present, but it doesn't quite come together into something
Speaker 1: as thoughtful as other stuff. Is there anything else you
Speaker 1: wanted to touch on, Susan before we go into ratings?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 5: I think if you're looking to study up on Whitey Bulger,
Speaker 5: my favorite book is actually by David Boweri, who's a
Speaker 5: br reporter who wrote a book about Whitey Bulger that's online.
Speaker 5: It's not one of the there's a lot of books.
Speaker 5: There's Black Mass which is fantastic. There's a book by
Speaker 5: Kevin Cullen and Chillie Murphy, but David Boweri's is my favorite,
Speaker 5: and no one knows about it. And if so, if
Speaker 5: you're looking for the history of the bullshit, I would
Speaker 5: say check it out.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 3: The movie, as we said, does not even come close
Speaker 3: to passing the Bechdel test because it would never think
Speaker 3: to put two women in the same room together.
Speaker 1: No, it really is like Vera Farmiga lives in a
Speaker 1: little space shuttle. She can travel between her apartment, Matt
Speaker 1: Damon's apartment, and her office, but you're not going to
Speaker 1: see her anywhere other than in a room with a
Speaker 1: movie star. That's sort of where she tends to be.
Speaker 1: And then all the other women, I think that if
Speaker 1: you do occasionally get a name, they are being verbally
Speaker 1: abused by Jack Nicholson by and large usually Yes, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3: As far as our nipple scale, where we rate the
Speaker 3: movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based
Speaker 3: on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, I don't
Speaker 3: think the rates very highly. I'm gonna give this movie
Speaker 3: one nipple. I generally like Martin Scorsese and his movies,
Speaker 3: and we love a Leonardo DiCaprio performance, although does this
Speaker 3: movie even count because he wet in this movie. I
Speaker 3: think he's wet from rainwater, but he is not in
Speaker 3: his clothes in a body of water, So like, what's
Speaker 3: the even point of the movie If you're not gonna
Speaker 3: put Leonardo DiCaprio in a body of water while he's
Speaker 3: fully clothed, it's not canon. I don't know why they
Speaker 3: wouldn't put Leonardo DiCaprio in water anyway. One Nipple for
Speaker 3: its failure to not really say anything that thoughtful about
Speaker 3: male feelings, just sort of presenting it, but then like
Speaker 3: not because the movie's too focused on the plot, like
Speaker 3: who's the guy, who's this guy? Who's that guy? Which
Speaker 3: is the guy that I'm looking for? And I don't
Speaker 3: know that he's the guy yet, And it's just like
Speaker 3: so much of that, and at the expense of all
Speaker 3: of the character development. And it's especially noticeable for the
Speaker 3: one woman who's present in Madeline, who some vague things
Speaker 3: are relayed to us as far as her characterization, but
Speaker 3: none of them really makes sense, and her choices and
Speaker 3: the gut again, yes, smart women go after dipshit horrible men.
Speaker 3: It happened, but also like, why does she fuck both
Speaker 3: of these horrible men? I don't know why she's making
Speaker 3: the choices she's making. So one nipple and I will
Speaker 3: give it to Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had to go one as well. I get
Speaker 1: progressively more bummed out by this movie the more I
Speaker 1: see it. It definitely doesn't make sense as an Oscar
Speaker 1: winning Martin Scorsese movie to be But I like, I mean,
Speaker 1: Boston representation at at all time high. Do they say
Speaker 1: brocks it? Yes they do. But for a movie that,
Speaker 1: like you would think, because of who's making it, would
Speaker 1: have a lot to say about masculinity and justice, I
Speaker 1: don't think that this movie really has a lot to
Speaker 1: say about either. And so it's a B tier Martin
Speaker 1: Scorsese movie for me. And there's absolutely nothing about women.
Speaker 1: And there's an acknowledgement of discrimination across class lines, across
Speaker 1: race lines, and there's certainly a lot of it's like
Speaker 1: acknowledged that like homophobia and racism exists in this world,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have much to say about it outside
Speaker 1: of that. There's a scene where Matt Damon tells Anthony
Speaker 1: Anderson like, you're a black guy in Boston, you're already fucked,
Speaker 1: which fair point, but also like that is leading up
Speaker 1: to nothing. It's just like saying it to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: racism exists in this city. I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: feel like there's a lot of setup that doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 5: We hit it you in the face with that, like
Speaker 5: again and again and again.
Speaker 1: And that's a very valid thing to want to talk about,
Speaker 1: but this movie doesn't want to talk about it, so
Speaker 1: I don't understand. It's really messy and is more coppaganda
Speaker 1: e than I remembered and as a bummer. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to give it one nipple, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: give it to sell machine maker, who edits all of
Speaker 1: Martin Scarsese's movies nice and also say that. I think
Speaker 1: that the biggest red flag about DiCaprio is that he's like,
Speaker 1: you don't have cats. I like that. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, what the fuck was that? He's not for me?
Speaker 3: What was that comment about.
Speaker 1: I think it's conflating cats with lonely women.
Speaker 4: Maybe he's allergic.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's giving him too much credit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true, Susan, what would you rate this movie.
Speaker 5: I'll give it to one, I'll give it okay, I'll
Speaker 5: give a nipple to like Jack Nicholson's outfits in this film,
Speaker 5: and he doesn't dress anything like Whitey Bulger, and I
Speaker 5: went to an auction of all Whitey Bulger, the things
Speaker 5: Whitey just like.
Speaker 4: War old sneakers.
Speaker 5: Jack Nicholson definitely shops at Violin's basement like the old
Speaker 5: Boston basement. It's not indicative of like the winter Hill
Speaker 5: gang style, but it is indicative of like a mobster
Speaker 5: at a certain point of time.
Speaker 4: And I do respect the film for that.
Speaker 5: The costumes are good, the costumes are good, accents better
Speaker 5: than most.
Speaker 4: But it would be hard for me to recommend this movie.
Speaker 4: It's just slur after slur.
Speaker 5: If you wanted to really dive into film history, I'd
Speaker 5: say certainly watch it, though. And the acting is great
Speaker 5: at points sure necessarily cohesively, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like no person in this movie that you
Speaker 1: can't find a better performance of them somewhere else.
Speaker 3: Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us and
Speaker 3: lending your expertise on Boston and New England area crime.
Speaker 3: Where can people follow you on social media? Plug whatever
Speaker 3: you want to plug.
Speaker 5: Right now, I'm really focusing on the response to the
Speaker 5: reporting my book and which I reveal that members of
Speaker 5: law enforcement and the victims who are marijuana dealers, we're
Speaker 5: part of the same criminal milieu, which maybe one reason
Speaker 5: why law enforcement didn't aggressively pursue this triple homicide, which
Speaker 5: had it been solved, could have prevented the Boston marathon bombing.
Speaker 4: And there's been no explanation about that, no answers. People
Speaker 4: in power have not been held to account.
Speaker 5: So I'm taking notes on how those in power do
Speaker 5: respond to the reporting in my book on my new
Speaker 5: substack all kind notes, but folks should go to my
Speaker 5: website Zalkind dot info. You can buy the book.
Speaker 4: You can follow me on Instagram and watch the docuseries. Yay, amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. Our first crime
Speaker 1: reporter guest is my apps Pressure. Thanks for yea gum
Speaker 1: shooting through this with us, and you can find us
Speaker 1: all the normal places Instagram. You can follow our Patreon
Speaker 1: aka Matreon, where for five bucks a month you can
Speaker 1: get access to two additional episodes with Caitlin and myself
Speaker 1: and we're going on tours soon.
Speaker 3: That's right. You can buy tickets to our shows on
Speaker 3: our Shrek Tanner tour. So you will be seeing Leonardo
Speaker 3: DiCaprio in his clothes in water.
Speaker 1: It's going to be stopping, wet, stopping, so slippery. That's
Speaker 1: slippery as tour yet. So if you haven't got your
Speaker 1: tickets to that, there's still tickets available in most cities.
Speaker 1: Will be in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Dublin and.
Speaker 3: Offered for the Saint Audio Podcast Festival. And our tickets
Speaker 3: are on link tree slash Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: Yes, so go there.
Speaker 3: And with that we were shipping out to Boston. Let's
Speaker 3: now ship away from Boston.
Speaker 5: Bye.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 3: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 3: by Mola Boord. Our theme song was composed by Mike
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