Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is a fictional crime saga, but Jack Nicholson’s character Frank Costello was based on a real infamous gangland figure. The Departed is a tense cat-and-mouse thriller about a dirty cop and an undercover officer trying to identify each other, all under the thumb of a powerful mob boss, played brilliantly by Nicholson. Although it was technically an English-language remake of the acclaimed Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs and followed its convoluted plot pretty closely, The Departed also borrowed some elements from true crime stories involving the Irish Mob.
The Departed is arguably Scorsese’s best gangster movie. Interestingly, he is typically known for setting his crime films in New York City, but he branched out to Boston for the twisty narrative of this 2006 masterpiece. This could be due to the inspiration for Frank Costello. While he is a fictional creation, and Nicholson brought plenty of his own flair to the character, Frank’s role in the plot is rooted in the notorious tale of a real-life criminal who similarly played his gang and the FBI against one another.
Frank Costello Is Based On Whitey Bulger
The Departed‘s Frank Costello was heavily inspired by the real-life antics of Joseph “Whitey” Bulger, Jr. Like Costello, Bulger was a crime boss – the leader of the so-called “Winter Hill Gang” – who considered himself to be the king of South Boston. Bulger, who was also played by Johnny Depp in Black Mass, eventually became so notorious that he appeared on the FBI’s Most Wanted list alongside the most infamous criminals in the world. However, at the same time, he was secretly cooperating with the FBI and selling out some of his closest associates.
This deal was mutually beneficial: it allowed the bureau to convict a bunch of infamous gangsters, and it allowed Bulger to rise through the ranks of the local mob and take the top spot in Boston’s criminal underworld. In the realm of organized crime, a “rat” is the most disreputable kind of person. Bulger insisted he wasn’t an informant to avoid this label, but both The Departed and Black Mass depict him as just that. The Departed’s closing shot even features a literal rat crawling across the screen as a metaphor for people like Costello.
Bulger Was “Disgusted” By Nicholson’s Portrayal Of Him
A sheriff’s deputy from Boston spotted Whitey Bulger in a screening of The Departed at a San Diego movie theater during its release. According to Casey Sherman, one of the authors of Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of the Capture & Killing of America’s Most Wanted Crime Boss, “Bulger shook his head in disgust many times while watching Jack Nicholson’s fictional version of him on the big screen” (via THR). Nicholson’s portrayal of Costello was eccentric and exaggerated, including a scene in which he throws cocaine on sex workers, so it’s possible that Bulger was dissatisfied with having his criminal behavior dialed up to an absurd degree.
