The Departed, explained to a 5-year-old
left: DiCaprio and Nicholson, by Scorsese. right: Plastic Man and Hawkgirl, by Sam.
The movie, plus previews, plus travel, is three hours long, so my wife and I don’t get home until 11:15. Sam (the 5-year-old in question) has been left with an untested babysitter. He is still awake, and delighted to see me as I take him back to bed. My wife and I are still kind of buzzed from the movie, which is a feast.
Sam: How was the movie?
Dad: It was great!
Sam: What was it about?
Dad: It’s, it’s for grown-ups, dude. Time for bed.
Sam: But what was it about?
Dad: It was about gangsters and policemen. Cops and robbers. Good guys and bad guys.
Sam: But what happened?
Dad: Sam, it is, currently, three and a half hours past your bedtime.
(Dad can feel that his buzz from the movie is transferring directly to his son, who is picking up on the vibe. And, since the movie is also about fathers and sons — real and metaphorical — it’s hard for Dad to break it off.)
Sam: But what happened in the movie?
Dad: Well. (beat) There are the police, right? And they’re the good guys. And then there are the gangsters, they’re the bad guys. Right?
Sam: Sure. And they wear different outfits.
Dad: That they do. That they do.
(Dad is stunned by this logistical leap from his son. They do, in fact, wear different outfits, but probably not in the way that Sam is thinking. Sam has, for his part, spent the evening watching Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, which also features gangsters, so he knows all about gangsters.)
Dad: Okay. So the police want to get the gangsters, so they send a policeman dressed up as a gangster to go spy on the gangsters.
Sam: Okay.
Dad: Now: at the same time, the gangsters, they want to know if the police are going to catch them, so they dress one of their guys up like a policeman to go spy on the police. So the police have a spy with the gangsters and the gangsters have a spy with the police.
(Sam’s look is drifting into incomprehension. Dad should probably let it do so. But his status as a storyteller is at stake. He seeks clarity.)
Dad: It’s like, let’s say, the Joker wants to spy on Batman. So he gets one of his guys and dresses him up like Robin and sends him over to spy on the Batcave. Meanwhile, Batman, without knowing what the Joker is doing, takes that ridiculous outfit off of Robin and dresses him up like one of the Joker’s guys and sends him to go spy on the Joker. And so through the whole movie you’re worried about whether both guys are going to get caught.
(Comprehension achieved. Sam’s face swims with the sudden illumination of possibilities.)
Sam: Wow. So what happens?
Dad: Well, what happens is that everybody gets into a whole heap of trouble.
Sam: Yeah, but what happens?
Dad: I’ll tell you what. It’s a great movie, and you can see it when you’re older. Like, when you’re a teenager. Hey, how about you and me go out for a milkshake?
___________
PS. I’ve read a couple of reviews that complain about Jack Nicholson’s performance in this movie. Or worse, they sort of sniff in disdain about some imaginary unhinged, undisciplined “crazy Jack” performance instead of a measured, finely observed characterization. As though they’re disappointed by seeing the greatest movie star of our time, and one of the greatest of all time, give a performance equal to the character’s importance in the story. I have no patience with these people. The acting in the movie (and the casting I might add) is uniformly excellent. In a time with few movie stars, here is a movie filled with movie stars, from the leads down to some blindsiding supporting roles, all doing really great work with a kind of energy I can’t remember seeing before, like they’re all eager to show us what they’ve got.
