When released on Feb. 13, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed sold out in stores all over Boston — and it is easy to see why. In addition to the gritty, powerful and now Oscar-winning film itself, The Departed: Two Disc Special Edition has tons of extras that fans are certain to love.
The Story of the Boston Mob: The Real-Life Gangster Behind Jack Nicholson’s Character kicks off the special features on the package’s second disc. The short documentary sheds light on the three decades of Whitey Bulger’s reign over South Boston and how he and his band of followers ran organized crime in South Boston, a.k.a: “Southie.” Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan discuss how they took the historical accounts from the real-life Boston mafia and added a personal story to it.
Many Southie residents and former police detectives spoke about run-ins with the notorious mob boss. Kevin Weeks, a bartender from Southie, talked about his work for Bulger, which resulted in a mere six-year prison sentence: a plea bargain in exchange for his cooperation with the Boston police.
Although Scorsese maintained that The Departed was not the exact story of Whitey Bulger, several similarities are hard to ignore. Frank Costello’s recruitment of Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) parallels Bulger’s recruitment of Weeks. Rumors of Bulger being an FBI informant and his involvement with FBI agent John Connolly, who went to prison for leaking information to the gangster, also prove that real life makes for the best cinematic drama.
Actors Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg spoke about their own experiences growing up in Boston. ” I’m playing one of the cops who used to arrest me all the time,” Wahlberg jokes on the DVD.
Any Scorsese fan should purchase The Departed for the feature length TCM career profile of the renowned director and his commentary on clips from his films.
Crossing Criminal Cultures is a short documentary about how the street crime of New York’s Little Italy influenced Scorsese’s work.
The special edition DVD wraps up with nine deleted scenes with optional commentary from Scorsese about why each scene did not make the final cut. Most of the extremely short scenes were better left on the cutting room floor, with the exception of one scene that featured a flashback of Frank Costello conversing with Billy Costigan’s father. It may have added more depth to Costigan’s complex relationship with Costello.
Any fan of The Departed will not be disappointed with the features of its DVD release.
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