The Bechdel Cast - The Departed with Susan Zalkind

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Susan Zalkind ship up to Boston to chat about The Departed.  Check out Susan at zalkind.info for more on Susan's reporting, book, social media, etc!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos,

host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just a quick note, Jamie, jumping in here to say that Susan

is a fan of the Bechdel cast, but does not necessarily share all of Caitlin and my views. Enjoy the show. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast, start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. Caitlin, I have to ask you something that like kind of defies the Bechdel test immediately. Sure. But if Martin Scorsese was given the choice, this is the trolley problem I'm going to present.

Either one of his children disappears forever because he's got a lot or the song gimme shelter was never written what do you think he would choose i feel like and i love martin scorsese i feel like he has to love the song gimme shelter more than at least one of his kids. Wow. I feel like there's one he would part with. He would depart with. He would depart with.

I think he would depart his least favorite child. This man loves, I mean, and I know maybe it's just because we also just watched Goodfellas, but it's in this movie for like 40 whole minutes. It just starts to loop during one scene. It's like, oh oh my god it's his favorite as does that dropkick murphy's song i feel like plays multiple times yeah we'll ask our guests in a second i think that there is actually kind of like a state law about that song like you can't even kind of get a permit to film if you don't use it like to film in boston or massachusetts yeah yeah no they won't let you unless you've

already like brokered a deal with the Dropkick Murphys. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's true. In any case, welcome to the Bechtel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. And as I've said recently, I'm just over explaining what the Bechdel test is since it truly has not very much to do with our show. And certainly nothing to do with this movie. Yes. If you don't know what the Bechdel test is, it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Lots of versions of the test. The version of the test we use is that

it requires two characters of a marginalized gender with names talking to each other about something other than a man. I include it in this episode only because I'm pretty certain it does not happen in this movie. Not even close. Not even remote.

It's so weird because Scorsese is so all over the place with women characters like when he nails it he nails it and sometimes he's just like like there's this element of like there's one woman in the movie and she kind of just exists in the context of two rooms. Like Vera Farmiga is like in an apartment or her office only. I'm worried about her. It feels like she's like got like a little ankle bracelet that will start beeping if she wanders too far afield from the plot. In any case, that's what our show is.

And we can tell you right now it doesn't pass the Bechdel test so we're going to talk about literally everything else the departed 2006 Martin Scorsese Boston and we have an incredible guest we sure do she is a journalist author producer and New Englander her reporting is mostly on New England crime. Okay, relevant to the movie. You see what we're doing here? What? She wrote and produced the 2022 Hulu docuseries, The Murders Before the Marathon, which was named one of the best shows of the year by the Wall Street Journal. And her book,

The Waltham Murders is out now. It's Susan Zalkind. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Oh my gosh. Thanks for being here. Before we get into talking about The Departed, we want to hear about the book. Let our listeners know, because I know you've been conducting this investigation for over a decade now. Yeah. I'm only just now getting the new reporting in the book out there in the world. I think most people have heard of the Boston Marathon bombing. The Whitey Bulger cases we'll talk about soon.

It was one of those huge Boston crime stories. I think the Boston Marathon bombing might even surpass that. It was a horrific attack. And there's still a lot of unanswered questions. Okay. So Tamerlan Tsarnaev was one of the bombers. 18 months before the bombing, there was this horrific triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts. Three men were found with their throats slit. There was marijuana dumped on two of the bodies.

It was this extremely unusual, horrific murder. And at the time, I was actually just out of college. I was working as a freelance overnight production assistant at a local news station. Whitey Bulger had just been busted. And it was this big, exciting story. And I was looking for a way to work my way up to the assignment desk or maybe become a reporter. And I'm from the area. I've been following homicide cases my whole life. And I thought, okay, this is an intriguing case, right? And then I found out one of the victims was my friend, a marijuana dealer who was just like sweet, kind human being. He was a great friend, not just to myself, but to a lot of members in

my community. And I stopped reporting on crime after that. Clearly it was emotional, to say the least, right? So that was my eager to be a crime reporter, whitey bulger, news, go, go, go, crash and boom. And then I found out my friend was killed. And I stepped back from all of that. After the bombing, there were new theories that maybe Tamerlan Tsarnaev could have been involved in the 9-11-11 brutal homicide of his friend. I was friends with one of the victims, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was actually friends and sparring partners with another one of the victims, Brendan Mess. And I was, of course, very curious about that as well. And I started looking into it. And I had inklings that maybe this case wasn't being pursued aggressively by police at the time,

but this was a well-funded police unit. It was a really unusual murder. So I surprised about that. And then one month later, a man in Florida was shot dead by an FBI agent in an interview with two Massachusetts state troopers. He was shot seven times in his own home. And the story that was leaked to the press was that this man who was also a MMA fighter confessed and that he implicated Tamerlan Tsarnaev and himself in my friend's murder. But there was no on the record reporting on any of this. So even though I had a personal connection to this case, it was very emotional for me. I knew that I needed answers and I made a commitment to push this case forward and to stick with it until the end. And no more than a decade later, here I am.

Wow. Holy shit. I mean, it's a wonderful book. I'm in the midst of it right now. So everyone definitely check it out. And it makes you truly maybe the best possible guest to have on the show to talk about The Departed.

All three of us have lived in the Boston area at one point or another. So let's start by talking about our personal history with the movie and also just like say what area in Boston you've lived in. Come on. Yeah, Susan. Okay, I'm from Newton. Try not to tell people this. It destroys my street credibility. Yeah, it's Okay. I'm from Newton. Try not to tell people this. It destroys my street credibility.

Yeah, it's over. Yeah. You're cooked. My family did the Jewish migration pattern on my dad's side. So he went like Chelsea, Dorchester, Brookline, Newton. There we go. But I actually uncover like a criminal underworld in my hometown of Newton, Waltham and Watertown in the book, which was really interesting to me, because we don't usually think about crime in that area, because it's technically safe.

It's the end of the green line. Yeah, I uncover a history of criminal underworld in my idyllic suburban hometown in the book, which may be one reason why investigators weren't keen on getting answers on this case in the first place. And also, I lived in Cambridge for years. I got out of Newton, I swear. And then what's your history with the movie The Departed? My history with The Departed, this is one of the movies that you have to watch if you're reporting on a crime, if you're trying to get a sense for the crime. I mean, The Departed is the movie that men on Tinder dates quote back to me most frequently when I tell them a reporter. So there's that. There's that part of the history of The Departed.

Looking back on it, I can definitely see that. I think I took it in at a young age, not very skeptically, you know, now we're watching it a little bit closer, but it's one of those movies that kind of just seeps into your soul if you're in the Boston area, for better or worse. It's kind of part of local Boston lore at this point as well. It's deep part of Boston. It's deep part as well. It's deep part of Boston. It's deep part of it. It's deep part of it. Thank you so much. Whoa, so many puns coming from little Jamie today. I know. It's because I'm sick. Honestly, I feel like I like something. Something's wrong. Like,

you know, like when you're sick, you can tell you're getting sick because your teeth kind of hurt that's me today my teeth always kind of hurt okay my history with the departed is that i didn't see it when it came out i was 13 when it came out and my mom was like no because i'm from brockton which is famously shouted out yes it is by a murderer by the name of alec baldwin in this movie this movie is obviously about boston but in a way everyone in brockton knows that alec baldwin says brockton fifth you lives in brockton with his mother she's straight out of going my way it's iconic in brockton that we were acknowledged exactly one time in cinema. Wow. Well, don't forget about the menu when Anya Taylor-Joy's character is allegedly from Brockton.

Oh my God. I think I got like more texts about a movie that I've ever gotten than when the menu came out. And they're like, the twist? I went to high school with her. But yeah, no, I didn't see this movie when it came out. My mom also was always very like, people get Massachusetts all wrong in movies. And virtually all of her issues with how Massachusetts is portrayed in movies exist within The Departed, which is fair enough. there is this tendency to want to only portray Harvard and like four blocks of Southie in every single movie about Massachusetts. There's very little interest in anything outside of it. I've been, you know, talking about this forever. Like there are stereotypes about the area, which are true. Boston is absolutely a very racist city, but it's just really frustrating because there are many areas of Massachusetts that are tremendously diverse and progressive.

And one of them is Brockton. And no one ever talks about Brockton except for Anya Taylor-Joy and Alec Baldwin. I love it when you talk about Brockton. It's all I want to do is talk about Brockton. Anyways, I've seen The Departed. The first time I saw it, I was like, this movie's good. And every time I see it now, I'm like, this movie is fine. This movie is fine.

If you're just watching for the Boston accents, like this movie is a must see. If you're just looking for like a tour de force of like Boston actors and actors who aren't from Boston who want to prove that they have like a Boston accent, they can put it on or like are just having like a lot of fun trying, then this is this is the movie to watch. Like, absolutely. Micro processes. Caitlin, what's your history with The Departed and Boyston? Well, I lived in Somerville for four years when I was attending Boston University where I did get a master's degree in screenwriting, which I, of course, never bring up. But as I was going to school when I was in said master's program because I wrote a script when I was in grad school about the Boston Irish mob. What? All right, here we go. I didn't know

this. Here's the thing. I did absolutely zero research on what the Boston Irish mob was like. You just watched The Departed? I literally just watched The Departed because it was an action comedy. So I was like, it's a comedy. It doesn't need to be that heavily researched. Anyway, so I wrote that script and then I did absolutely nothing with it. It is just sitting on a hard drive somewhere. That's our most scripts. But I watched The Departed, I think a couple times in order to like inform my writing of that script. Do not watch The Departed if you're trying to learn about the Boston Irishman.

But that said, like maybe we should partner up and like revive the script, like with our powers and fine. Maybe. Yeah, could be. Could be a hit. Yeah. I, God, it's dangerous to talk about Boston on the show. I have two more quick

things that I know we have to get started. I wanted to quickly flex that I constantly confuse The Departed and The Town. To me, they are the same movie. Every time I'm watching The Departed, I'm like, isn't Jon Hamm in this movie? No, he's not even famous when this movie came out. To me, they're the same movie. They have the same vibe. However, I went to the premiere of The Town for some reason. It was at Fenway Park and they made all the students sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park and watch The Town. But it was like on a small screen in the middle of the baseball field. Don't understand like what the vision was because it was really hard to see the movie. But you were at Fenway. But I was at Fenway. I know, but it's also like, yeah, I'm from here.

I don't care. Who cares? I don't care. Fenway Park, Jamie. It's historical. It's amazing. The Green Monster. I worked at a bagel shop across from Fenway Park

and I really grew to hate Red Sox fans with just a burning passion. They were so rude about their bagels. Finally, Whitey Bulger connection. My aunt's father, who's not related to me because she's not actually my aunt, but my aunt's father was arrested twice because he looked a lot like Whitey Bulger.

Whoa. And so his neighbors called the cops on him. The bartender at the bar he went to called the cops on him. Like he became sort of like a locally famous figure for always getting arrested for looking like Whitey Bulger. Anyways, may he rest in peace. I love that. And I also feel like one fourth of like the population of men of a certain age in Boston look like Whitey Bulger. I'm just like, oh, he looks like an old white guy. But I guess like the facial hair, like it was all and he lived in the area as well. So they were like, Whitey Bulger walks among us, but it was just Mr. Smith. And I guess that's like the thing about Whitey Bulger. It's not

just Whitey Bulger. It's like the myth of Whitey Bulger that is so part of like the Boston lore for decades and decades and how that myth has changed and how he's like shaped the myth about himself as well. I'm excited to talk about the Frank Costello overlap, but let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and talk about the movie. Let's do it. we'll be right back Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now the situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life.

It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre.

It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos!

Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. And we are back, and it's time for the recap and I'm going to give a little disclaimer on this recap which is that I was mostly following the movie but a lot of things happen in the movie that I don't understand why or how they happen so I don't know how to describe a lot of what happens. So this

recap might be a big mess. And it might not make any sense. I don't know. Let's find out. This is a group project. We've got this. I'd say that this is like one of the challenges of The Departed. Like I've known two like close family members who can't tell like Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio apart in this movie until like an hour in so that can kind of be like a twist for some people I don't have that problem I am very very good at distinguishing those two boys okay it's just the rest of the plot that I don't really know if I understand I think it's a haircut issue for me it It's just like they just needed more. If you're going to cast two white guys, you just give everyone a different haircut, at least. Anyways, The Departed.

The Departed. So we're in Boston, specifically South Boston, a.k.a. Southie. We meet Frank Costello, played by Jack Nicholson. He is an Irish mob boss. And he has this kid start working for him named Colin Sullivan. And the kid looks like he's going to grow up to be Matt Damon. And sure enough, cut to him as Matt Damon. And he is finishing his training to become a cop for the Massachusetts State Police Department. He's also being very homophobic when we first meet him. Well, don't forget he's also being racist when we first meet him.

He's being, and Frank Costello's being very racist. Every character in this movie is very racist and or homophobic and or sexist. Yeah, every possible stereotype around characters you see in movies from Boston are present in the first two minutes of this movie. Yeah. But like explicitly about like them saying like horrifically offensive things. Yeah. Dropping slurs. About like other races and genders. There's like nothing likable about Frank Costello at any point in this film. Certainly not. Except for his suits sometimes. Except for when he wears a shirt

that just says Irish on it and that we support. And it's just like, Frank, the Irish do not claim you. We don't claim you. Okay, so then we meet another cop, Billy Costigan, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

He is a kind of lowly state police officer. In fact, I don't think he ever finishes his training. He also got like a 1400 on his SAT and he can quote Hawthorne and stuff. So we're like, okay, he's smart, question mark. Anyway, his mother has just passed away. And that's something that I guess is important for us to learn yeah I mean I don't know if that's based in truth but like it's also just like okay we also in the first 10 minutes have a woman dies for the plot to begin even though it's like not it wasn't necessary yeah the key thing about Leonardo is that he has two accents he has his Southie like Boston accent. And then he is also from like the North shore,

like a upper class family, like Gloucester, maybe Marblehead. And so he has, he's a double guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's a,

he's a class shifter. He's a shape shifter. He's code switching. He is among Boston, Boston class. I mean, kind of. Yeah.

Yeah. So he can turn the Boston accent on and off. And it's like, oh, Leo, you actually do a pretty decent Boston accent. So that's a huge takeaway. He does. Which is also important in a worse Martin Scorsese movie, Shutter Island. Oh, that's right. I need to rewatch that one.

Once you know the twist, it's not as fun, but still good. Yeah. All right. Then we meet some more cops. They are Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg. And I do just keep their actors names throughout this recap. So sorry about that. But anyway, that's fine.

They run the like undercover division of the organized crime unit of the state police department and billy has a meeting with them and they think that billy is a good candidate to go undercover and infiltrate frank costello's crime family basically become one of frank's minions minions yes i also wrote down thank you in overlap minion representation so frank costello is grew and billy is about to become like kevin lehman yawn kevin oh he wishes he wishes he's maybe more of a stewart or a bob yeah that's true it's true so much of this movie is just like the different leaders being like, which guy is your guy? And everyone's just trying to figure out whose guy is whose guy so much. That's the plot. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Where's the guy? Which guy is the guy of the guy? I guess that's a lot of crime thrillers. Where's the guy? It's usually he's right here. He's standing right next to you

he's the guy you don't suspect because he's right in front of your face anyway okay so martin sheen and mark walberg want billy to go undercover and become a minion and to be able to convincingly do that billy will have to be like quote-un, fired from being a cop and do jail time for like an assault and battery charge so that Costello won't suspect that Billy is still a cop. Meanwhile, Colin gets promoted to detective and he starts working under Alec Baldwin, who leads the organized crime division, but not the undercover part. So he doesn't know who's undercover and who's not. And that crime division is targeting Frank Costello. They're trying to take him down. But wait a minute, Colin still works for Costello. I guess the idea is that Colin became a cop

because Costello wanted someone on the inside to be his little spy. Yes. And because like we've been saying for years, every movie is ultimately about fathers and sons. Yes. There is an element of both the Matt Damon and the DiCaprio characters that is like, is Jack Nicholson my dad? Yeah. And I mean, at least I feel like this movie has something to say about that, which is no. He's not. He's not is no. He's not.

He's not your daddy. He's not. He's no one's daddy. Then the police find out about a robbery where these like military grade, super expensive microprocessors were stolen. Oh, my God. Just when you think they're not going to say it again, they say it again. I feel like every character says it, but it really just draws your attention. For me, I should have ranked who says microprocessors the best. Most of it is just like, well, Mark Wahlberg says it the most and the best. But Matt Damon gets one or two in there. Sure. Martin Sheen says it. If someone says it, everyone has to say it. I love it. It's beautiful.

It reminds me of how like the first Fast and the Furious is about like stealing DVD players. You're like, why this bizarre piece of dated technology? Anyway, so they know about this robbery and they know that Frank Costello and his minions are behind it. Meanwhile, Billy does his jail time. And then he is released. And then he gets to work on finding an inn with Costello by way of his like low level criminal cousin, who is kind of vaguely connected to Costello. And then Billy finally meets Costello, who wants to know if Billy is still a cop.

He's like beating his like broken hand about it to get him to confess. But Billy doesn't relent. And so Costello trusts him and lets him become a minion. Meanwhile, Billy keeps reporting to Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg. They're still trying to nail Costello for this microprocessor robbery. Then one of Costello's minions, but like a very important minion. In fact, this might be Kevin Le Mignon. This is Kevin.

Yeah, this is Kevin. Actually, no, Kevin is probably Mr. French. This is another guy. He gets arrested. So Colin is like, Colin knows the cops are about to raid one of like Frank's crime spots. Oh, yeah, this is a good scene where Matt Damon lies to everyone. I do not understand what's happening. But basically, he does this sneaky thing where he like warns Costello about the raid, but it makes it look like he's doing his cop job well.

But like, he's playing both sides., but like... He's playing both sides. Yeah, it shows he's playing both sides. So he pretends to be the guy's lawyer. So he makes it complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. While all of this stuff is happening, Colin has met and has started dating Madeline, played by Vera Farmiga.

She is a psychiatrist who, I don't know if she specifically works with the police department but she has a lot of clients who are cops yeah vera farmiga's character is so interesting also because like i guess that she the source material that this is or one of the pieces of source material is a hong kong action movie where her character is two women. Which makes more sense. Yeah. I think it's done away with in favor of making this very boring love triangle that I don't care about.

And also, why have two women when you could have fewer? Right. But it's just, I was like, I mean, I guess that more cops should be in therapy, but I don't know. Yeah, we can talk about it yeah but anyway so colin has started dating her but you know who else has started seeing madeline at first in a psychiatrist client capacity yeah it's billy costigan oops oops she also couldn't tell the difference between dicaprio and damon so she's just like confused. Are you my boyfriend?

I have face blindness. Yeah. Okay. So Billy does not know that Colin is in cahoots with Costello. And Colin does not know that Billy is undercover. He just knows that Billy is one of Costello's new guys. New minions. Yes. He's like Otto, basically. Right. From my minion

heads. Yeah, I don't even know that one. So I'm a fake fan. He's new. He's new. Don't worry about it. Anyway, so at this point, Billy has been undercover for a year. He's getting very anxious. But Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg need more time to build their case against Costello. They also suspect that Costello has a spy in the police force, but they don't know that it's Colin Sullivan. Then Alec Baldwin sets up this bust to try to get Costello as he's selling the microprocessors. And Colin is secretly texting Costello information. Billy is secretly texting Martin Sheen information. And ultimately, the cops are not able to bust Costello during this transaction. And from this, and I don't understand how because I don't know

how crime works. And I don't know how cops work, but Billy is able to confirm that there is a rat in the police department. So he and Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg get to work on figuring out who it is. Meanwhile, Madeline has transferred Billy to another psychiatrist, so he asks her out for coffee, and they go to coffee, and she's talking about her boyfriend. After, like, crushing her into like giving him pills so that's like that's how the romance starts yeah and then she does it to prove she's not like other psychiatrists i'm like this is not this is not how you do your job the only woman we know and she's bad at her job great yeah oh then costello has like a girlfriend surprisingly like at the end

too she has i couldn't tell if those were multiple girlfriends or if it was just one woman doesn't matter doesn't matter he's very sexist to all of them whoever they are yeah he's an equal opportunity misogynist he will be horrible to anyone true anyway so they're out for coffee madeline and billy and she's talking about her boyfriend who billy does not know is colin so there's another level of like who is this guy and he doesn't know who colin is either right not yet at least then costello calls col to be like, I'm getting the feeling like one of my minions is an undercover cop. Below. Below. And Colin agrees. And he wants Costello to give him the real names and social security numbers of all the guys in his crew

so that Colin can like run them through the cop database or something and then Billy learns from some guy who we haven't seen before and we won't see again that Costello is actually a protected FBI informant and that's why he never gets busted and billy is like wait what and billy relays this information to martin sheen and throws this whole wrench in the situation then billy shows up at madeline's house and suddenly they're making out and they have sex even though she's still with colin and now living with him but she has doubts him. But she has doubts. She has doubts. She has such doubts.

Fair enough. Because he's like, I don't want a picture of you as a child at my apartment in our living room. Yeah. I was like, what? Okay. He's not a great boyfriend. So like you can kind of understand why she might want somebody else. But her client who hassles her her pills you know there's questions

not a better option yeah i don't care that she cheats on him i just care how she cheats on him and with whom yeah and it's someone who's basically just as bad yeah ain't that just the way true anyway so alec baldwin assigns colin the duty of investigating the like organized crime division to find out who the rat is t he's the rat he's the rat and so he's like okay sure i'll find him jk then there's this little meeting at a porn theater between costello and colin oh my god billy is there lurking in the background in secret. He's trying to figure out who the rat is. It feels like a priest and a rabbi joke.

Like that whole scene is like a Jack Nicholson, a Leonardo DiCaprio and a Matt Damon all enter a porn theater. Like it's just, and they don't even bother to put like a fourth person in there. It's just them. I love it. Yeah. And it's like a metaphor person in there it's just them i love it yeah and it's like a

metaphor for the whole movie really i think it was like at that point in this viewing room like yeah this movie's pretty silly it's kind of sillier than people give it credit for it yeah anyway so colin has this envelope with all of the names and social security numbers of Costello's crews because he's trying to figure out who the mole is. Billy follows Colin. He's trying to ID him, but he loses Colin before he can identify him. So Billy still doesn't know that the rat is Colin. And Colin, who knows someone was following him, still doesn't know that the mole is Billy.

Yeah. So like Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio have this like a really charged relationship, but they don't know who the other person is at the same time. And the tension is mounting about it. And then Colin is trying to still figure out for Costello who the undercover cop is. And for reasons that I totally definitely understand, he doesn't suspect Billy, but he does suspect Martin Sheen. So now he has everyone tailing Martin Sheen and Costello's minions throw him off of a building

and he dies. And then there's this big shootout between the mob boys and the cops. The shot where Martin Sheen basically explodes again. Like it's gross. I'm sure physics to some extent bears that out but again you're just like it's silly it's silly it's silly yeah it's like slapstick gruesome so that's like the next yeah the next turn it's like it's kind of like a slapstick horror yeah film in some ways and

in that way it's like you know it's kind of is what it is it's interesting because i yeah i feel like some of the violence in this movie is so over the top and visceral and then sometimes it's like and here's martin sheen and he's gonna explode basically you're like okay i guess not a lot of nuance not much no so then colin gets access to martin Sheen's like burner phone and stuff. He also learns that Costello is an FBI informant. And with the burner phone, he calls Billy and they're both like, who is this? Because they still don't know. And then that night, the cops go after Costello. There's another bigger shootout.

And this time, Costello gets shot and killed by Colin because he's like, you're an informant. Boo. You're not my dad. Exactly. Yeah, truly. Then the cops are like, wow, good job, buddy. You got his ass. And so after that, Colin and Billy have a little chat.

And in the same moment, they each discover that the other one is the rat. Billy by seeing the envelope, Colin just by virtue of seeing him and knowing that he's the one guy who would have been the undercover cop i think he responded to his call right like yeah but it's not until he's his handler's gone and so now like martin sheen would have been his only like contact the office right so when he shows up at the police department he's like oh that's the guy and for some, he doesn't think to go to Mark Wahlberg. Well, because Mark Wahlberg was so aggro that he quit slash got fired.

So he's not there right now. So I missed that. OK, Mark Wahlberg is fired. Yeah. Well, yeah. Alec Baldwin's like, take a two week leave of absence. And then Mark Wahlberg's like,

fuck you, I quit. That's why he's not around for now. Got it. But wait, but wait a minute, he'll come back. Anyway, so Colin, because he now realizes that Billy Costigan is the undercover guy, he deletes all records that Billy was ever a cop to, I guess, protect Collins, whatever, something. And then Billy runs away and he goes to Madeline to give her a different envelope. And he tells her to open it if anything happens to him. Meanwhile, Madeline says to Colin, hey, I'm Gregnant. And he's like, what? Yeah, Chekhov like what yeah Chekhov's Greg Chekhov's Greg Chekhov's envelope there's all kinds of stuff going on here then Billy blackmails Colin with audio recordings

that Costello had recorded because he was like recording everything basically Costello was like I want to have a podcast I want to be recording my voice all the time. So Madeline listens to the recording. And so now she knows that her boyfriend Colin is a slimy little rat. Whoops. She also listens to it. Just like a very 2006 detail of this movie is she listens to the CD on a gigantic entertainment center with with headphones really beautiful it was beautiful so then billy arrests colin but before he can bring him in

another cop shoots and kills billy and this other cop is another one of Costello's minions who he had on the inside. But then Colin shoots him so as to erase any evidence that Colin was another one of Costello's like inside rat guys, I think, question mark. And he thinks he's safe, Colin does, until he goes home and Mark Wahlberg is in his apartment and he shoots and kills Colin because I guess that Madeline had opened the envelope and went to Mark Wahlberg. But we don't see that on screen. And I'm just speculating. The end.

Somehow Mark Wahlberg has figured it all out. He's figured it out. Talk about a movie contrivance, having Mark Wahlberg display signs of human intelligence. Putting out a Boston crime book here, Jamie. Yeah. I mean, Mark Wahlberg is just I feel like also our Boston mascots that the media has selected are generally not great people. Why't jenny slate be the state representative right someone who hasn't committed a race crime hate crimes and stuff which makes the like language in this film all the more uncomfortable yeah totally and we don't have to get into this too

much but like the same way that like mark walberg is just letting homophobic slurs rip and also he has done that in interviews and you know all this stuff yeah i want to say really quickly because we just covered goodfellas on newcomers if you listen to newcomers we're going to be doing that in an upcoming episode of theirs so we just watched we've been watching a lot of martin scorsese crime movies that's true I like that Martin Scorsese loves to have a famous guy walk into a room and die right away I feel like there's parallels between the Joe Pesci oh no oh no in Goodfellas but then with Matt Damon he walks into his own apartment and says okay okay yeah I prefer Joe Pesci but it's funnier at the very least goodfellas is interesting because like

wannabe mom guys like read it and study goodfellas like it's like their bible right they're like reenacting scenes from goodfellas they're like posing like they're goodfellas they're like quoting goodfellas so that's an important film in another way. Yeah. Not unlike the way I watched The Departed to learn things for my own screenplay. Right. We got to take another quick break and then we will come right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the

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about the context of where this movie is coming from. It's a little more complicated than I realized. I knew that it was pulling from, and I know, Susan, that you know way more about this than either of us do. I knew that it was pulling from the Winter Hill Gang and from Whitey Bulger lore. I didn't realize that this was an adaptation of a Hong Kong action movie called Internal Affairs. There's not too much to say about that other than the

filmmakers of Internal Affairs were like, we liked The Departed. It was too long. It was the length of three movies. And you're just like, damn. And also mentioned that the Vera Farmiga character, like we talked about before, is two characters, both women in internal affairs, and that they were like, we don't really know why they made that change. But just for context, I just didn't realize this was an adaptation of a different movie. I thought it was just events. I didn't realize that either. Yeah, well, it makes it makes sense, given that context. And the writer, I actually it's William Monaghan. He's like an all weekly writer. He's a Dorchester guy. He's kind of a man of my own heart. He's like hyper into like Boston regionality. And I think he took that and then tried to fit that into this internal affairs script, pulling some of the Whitey Bulger saga. But also it's like, it's very, very different than what actually happened in Boston crime history. Yeah, I guess, Susan, is there anything that stands out to you

as like worthy of mention in terms of parallels between this movie and actual Boston crime history? Or is it mostly movie, movie history, gobbledygook kind of stuff? Well, I guess my biggest take, so Whitey Bulger is this like South Boston mobster that usually when you think about the caricature of Boston crime movies, they're usually set in Southie, you have the town, even Goodwill Hunting. And he was this criminal who was busted for robbery at a younger age, sent to Alcatraz. The CIA actually like doped him with like tons of acid, which is another part of the story that usually gets like left out. Did not know. He was literally part of like the MK ultra experiment. So he comes back from prison and he's now like all like doped up. And his brother, Billy, meanwhile, has become this like very powerful Boston

politician. He was like the president of the Massachusetts state Senate for 19 years. And there's a relationship between Whitey Bulger and members of law enforcement specifically the FBI so you have John Conley who I think is the basis for the Colin Sullivan character Matt Damon who knew Whitey Bulger when he was a kid like Whitey bought him like an ice cream cone and like scared away his like bullies but I don't think he has the same like long-standing connection to whitey growing up he does have a connection to whitey's brother billy though oh interesting so here's a part of the like whitey bulger story that it gets me really annoyed that we're not looking at it more but whitey bulger's fbi handler johnley, got busted for basically being paid off by Whitey, like tipping him off to things, even being involved in murders.

And he was busted. But his supervisor, the guy above him, got immunity. Right. So there was never an investigation into the people overseeing Conley or how deep the problem went into the FBI, it just stopped at John Conley. His boss got immunity for giving him up. And the Whitey Bulger story, which, you know, back in the day, there was this myth about Whitey Bulger, which I think he put forth himself, that he was really this Robin Hood figure. He kept drugs out of the neighborhood and he didn't hurt women, which isn't true. He murdered

women. But the next layer of that, of like how deep the problem went has never really been assessed. And I'm critical of stories that don't frame the deeper systemic problem. They just, they paint like one really bad guy and that's the, he's the one kind of raising the cops. It's not an issue with law enforcement at large. I feel, and we can dive into this more, but to me, this movie perpetuates the myth of a police force might have one or two bad apples via, you know, Colin being the corrupt cop who has this in with the mob, but that most of them are just doing their job and they're good guys, actually, and blah blah blah and I take a lot of issue with that obviously and I feel like that's a pretty big component of this movie it's interesting

that we're that this is a Scorsese movie and that it was like the movie he won his first Oscar for and even like there's a quote from Scorsese about it that it's like kind of weird that this is the movie that he won his Oscar for because it's not even in his like top five of like his best movies. And I just think that like he's handled a lot of these themes that we're talking about being missed

like way better in his body of work. So it just like ends up feeling a little dissonant where there's plenty of Martin Scorsese movies where there are cop and law enforcement characters and the movie is far more critical of them and there's plenty of Martin Scorsese gangster movies where there's more shades of gray and complexity but I feel like this movie just kind of gets like bogged down in the, like, I don't know,

for me, it feels like the ultimate message is like any duplicitous person is going to get killed or like, they're going to be departed. Yeah. It felt like an oversimplified theme and like in service of that theme ends up bailing on a lot of the anti-cop and anti-establishment themes you see throughout Martin Scorsese's work it's just like a weird one I don't know

the more I watch it the more I'm you know like there's certainly like moments where you're like okay that is critical of policing but then it's always kind of scaled back to keep the thrill whether it's like oh actually we want you to focus on this love triangle that's not necessary now or like we want you to focus on this this and this it definitely seems to believe that you know law enforcement is more good than bad and that part of the problem is that there's all these poor mobsters that are infiltrating law enforcement like that's the issue yeah and i will say that the fact that frank ultimately working with law enforcement like that is a statement it just i feel like in characters like the martin sheen character and the mark walberg character like these are presented as

like these are our good cops who want to do good things. And like Mark Wahlberg is so good that he gets fired. Like it's just, I don't think it's like, certainly not anywhere near the worst leaning into pro cop. I just, it feels really muddled though for me in this movie. Well, if you're watching for the Boston accents alone,

which is how I suggest watching this movie, I think another point of context is at the time, so Bulger was tipped off to a bust by his FBI handler in the 90s. And so he was on the lam for 16 years. And he wasn't arrested until 2011. so he could have seen the departed in theaters oh he absolutely did he wasn't busted until then so there still was this like element of mystery surrounding the story of this boston irish gangster who was able to infiltrate local cops and the FBI.

So I think there's, that's part of the intrigue. And also, again, like I said, it's just the boys really go in on their Boston accents. And I think that's really what the movie is about at the end of the day. It's really about that largely. Yeah. And Mark Wahlberg is also like very specifically, his accent is Dorchester. Like, so he gets to represent that and really, really go in. Before we get into our one woman, just wanted to shout out one of my favorite character

actors is in this movie, Mr. Kevin Corrigan. Oh, yes. He plays the cousin. Yeah. No one plays a dirtbag like Mr. Kevin Corrigan. He's not from Boston. He's from the Bronx. But I was just like revisiting Kevin Corrigan's resume.

And I just wanted to, it's really fun to just read out his character names, one right after the other, because he is certainly typed. I just want to share a few. Jimmy Stellatella, Frankie Spivak, Finn Garrity, Zloz Lasowski, Flossie, Sean Garrity, Titus Amato, Smitty, Kevin, Milkshake, Jackie Moreno, Jimmy Pearson, Master Thief, Declan Sullivan, Venero, Vincent Bishop. Like it's this guy plays a type and he plays. I love Kevin Corey. He was on this sitcom I watched when I was a kid called Grounded for Life. And he played Dirtbag Uncle. And apparently that resonated with me because I'm always really happy to see him.

There are some like fairly good like Boston scenes. So that's one scene with Leo when they're on the couch and Leo's like, you know, I'm not a cop. I'm your cousin. You must be my cousin. You piece of shit. Like they're like, oh, that is like a very like accurate, like Southie scene of that time. Speaking from experience experience cousins from boston can be real pieces of shit it's true okay let's talk about the one woman yes well first i'll

say that something that i think is kind of interesting about this movie is that there's this this motif, I suppose, throughout the movie about like male feelings. And that comes by way of the Madeline character being a mental health professional. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit more about like the male feelings of it all. But yes, for Madeline, I mean, classic case of the movie has exactly one woman in it. She, to me, doesn't really feel like a real person or a real psychiatrist. The way she does her job is very questionable. She starts dating Colin, and I had a very hard time suspending my disbelief that a mental health professional would fall in love with this like emotionally repressed cop especially because a lot of the clients she sees are emotionally repressed cops he knows her he gets

her he knows that he lies he's able to read her in this way that nobody else does and she has a past but it doesn't matter what it is because she's like, let's keep it about you. Oh, well, no, that's her and Billy. I'm talking about her and Colin because she starts dating both of them, question mark. And both of them, I don't know why she's into them. It was the elevator banter. And also, like, she doesn't have a thick Boston accent. And he does.

And I think that's part of like the tough boy. Like, I think there's a some sort of element there as well. I mean, she's definitely bad at her job. There are plenty of therapists who are irresponsible. There are plenty of therapists who have fucked their clients. However, this is the one therapist we see in the movie as well as the one woman. And so it just feels like it's, I do appreciate that at least it is plot relevant

at least once of what like her job is. Because sometimes I feel like you're just told like, she teach first grade and that, but it doesn't actually matter. She could do anything. Like it is relevant what she's doing but not for very long like after a while and and Susan you're totally right I feel like there's multiple points in the movie where she is set up to share more about herself and then it doesn't

happen it's really weird to me and it's always like in service of no actually let's talk more because this movie obviously has a gigantic interest in like the three main men's background and it feels really egregious that like there's no interest in why she's doing what she's doing when she's asked she's just like i just want to make a difference like just very vague well I think that's why keeping her as a therapist is so convenient because there's no we don't need to figure out anything else about her she's just like a female character that has a love interest on the elevator what we learn about her really just serves to prove that Leonardo DiCaprio's character is like smart and is able to read people. And yeah, so I think that there's nothing about her own personal background that really is relevant to this plot and the way that it's written.

I mean, and also like smart women date pieces of shit all the time. Right. But again, this is our this is our one woman that we have. And the only reason we're to believe that she's going to go for DiCaprio is because he cares that she was a child once. But Matt Damon's like, I don't care that you're a child. Get that shit out of my face. It's just like everything with her is unbelievably vague. It's so bizarre. Yeah.

To the point where another, you know, another motif of this movie is like, lying and honesty versus dishonesty. And there's that scene where I think it's the first scene where Billy goes to see Madeline as like a client psychiatrist relationship. And he's like, Well, what about you? Do you lie? And she's like, saying something you do you lie and she's like saying something kind of vague but she's implying that she does or that everyone does and then later on when she finds out that her boyfriend Colin is the rat she's like and I thought I was the liar and I'm like what are we even talking about here what have you lied about and what I think that that's probably a reference to the fact that she's been cheating on him cheating right which also I again I do not understand why she finds

Billy alluring because she has no idea that he's working undercover I'm pretty sure she just thinks that he used to be a cop in training and then was let go from the force because of this like assault and battery charge. So like, just imagine that you're a psychiatrist and you have a client who seems to be a violent offender, you know, stuff like that, who doesn't seem to be able to process or regulate his emotions very well and who screamed at you during one of your appointments and then he shows up at your house randomly one night and then you as the psychiatrist are like yes i should have sex with this person yeah well but caitlin he cares that she was a girl once yes yes yes sorry i forgot you see she was left with no choice i honestly didn't because

this movie gets so like yada yada in the movie way it didn't even connect to me it was like oh yeah like why would she assume that he had participated in the plot of the departed i guess i don't have that answer. Right. Because the whole plot is happening outside of her purview. Right. She's at work. We know that she has issues. We just aren't really supposed to care what they are. And the fact that Leo is kind of intuitive about that is what makes him so attractive.

I did think it was interesting. So you have the elevator banter with Matt Damon. Mm-hmm. And then they go on the date and he immediately like negs her. Yeah. He's like, who says like, I would want to go on a date with you. And then she gets like nervous and then tries to prove herself. So I did feel like that was at least like accurate to some of what yeah the situation would have been sure it's not much but it's like i am glad that she bails on him at the end like at least it wasn't like all right let's make this work like no best of luck to her and maybe she should possibly change professions there were elements that it's like they go out of the way to show us that he is

not a good partner and she eventually does leave him i feel like you don't get that in most movies and also in a lot of martin scorsese movies but again i think i'm just responding to just having watched goodfellas where ironically the female lead in goodfellas does not leave her partner, but we understand why. There are other Scorsese crime movies that do have a vested interest in the women that appear in this world. And they're, you know, humanized. And even if it's not what you would do in this situation, you do understand. And like she's given narrative importance and then in the case of goodfellas like whole sequences that she is narrating that are directly from her perspective and you just like don't get anywhere near that with vera formica's character we don't know

anything about her susan you're totally right where it's like we're told that she has a past that means maybe she would be more vulnerable towards pieces of shit like this but we don't know why her character is there to serve the like plot points of the men yeah for sure there's no other point about her as a character and i think it's telling at the very end of the movie like the final scene we we learn the name of Frank Costello's girlfriend he's when like Matt Damon calls up Gwen I guess when and the fact that we just there's this character and we have no idea like what her name is even except for the point is to like announce Frank Costello's death to somebody. Yeah, it feels like worse than if there was no character introduced there.

It's like, how dare you tell me that this woman is important for one second? That's another one of my beefs with a lot of like mafia narratives is there's no woman's voice in it at all. True crime is often ascribed to women. It's like a woman's interest. But I think it's interesting that for some reason, organized crime, mob movies don't fit into the

category that we think of when we typically think of true crime. I love stories about female criminals and the actual impact that they've had. I talked to the daughter of a local leader in Newton Watertown area and the book, I think Leah Carroll's book, Down City, where her mother was murdered by the mob is also like a fascinating book if you're looking for female voices in mob stories because they're few and far between. I feel like almost in every single genre that is marketed at men, there were almost always people of all genders involved, but the stories don't reflect that. Right. Then you have the other thing you have in film noir. You have the femme fatale where the woman is really powerful and is like the source of all that goes wrong. She's really

sexually charged. She gets you into a lot of trouble. You may die, but somehow you like don't regret being with her. So that's either the female character is like supremely evil and kind of like a emotionally manipulative mastermind, or she's just not in the story at all. Yeah, put on the sidelines. To go back to Madeline really quick, I just could not get over the scene where Billy shows up at her house. And he's like, Oh, sorry, if this is inappropriate. And she's like, No, it's not inappropriate. You're not a client anymore. And it's like, yeah, still stalking you did show up at your house in the middle of the night. How does he And she's like, no, it's not inappropriate. You're not a client anymore. And it's like, yeah. He's still stalking you.

He did show up at your house in the middle of the night. How does he even know where you live? Why is he showing up unannounced in the night, in the rain? And then why did you have sex with him after that? I think that this is, we haven't talked about it in a while, and I do need to rename it, like let's buscemi test this so many scenes in this movie it only works because leonardo dicaprio is doing it and it's young dicaprio who's gonna turn him away you're like if you swap that out with just a guy she would have called the police. The reason her character works is because this is a film

about this charged relationship between like Leo and Matt Damon, who are like two young men. They should just kiss and call it a day. Like looking for their daddies in all the wrong places. And that she's really, they don't know who the one another is

or even the one another exists for a while, but she's the connecting point between those two characters. Yeah. And I think that's the only purpose that her character really serves. Yeah. And it's tricky because it's like

the Jamie of 10 years ago whose brain didn't, well, worked both better and worse depending on the situation. Sure, sure. Like would be like, why aren't there any women cops in this? Which is like a valid question because the Boston Police Department has more women and more people of color than is reflected in this movie, right?

But it's not like I was like, where's my girl boss cop? Right. Women are murdered in this movie. Well, women are murdered or mocked, I feel like, outside of any other woman you see who is not Vera Farmiga. And this also feels like kind of class charged as well, where there's, you know, men across the class spectrum that get at least some characterization in this movie. Definitely not true for women because we only have one and she went to harvard this is the only woman we're really sort of like asked to consider or respect even though we know nothing about her right and most of the other women we see are either poor

and there to talk to matt damon or dicaprio for a scene to give them information and they're kind of like set dressing characters or they're sex workers that jack nicholson is throwing something at and bossing around and treating poorly and so like that's kind of it or they're murdered in one case like but it's like there's just so little well that's also like part of this movie is about class to some extent yeah i think that's the way that you're supposed to sympathize with Matt Damon's character, is that he grows up poor without a father, and he's getting out of the rough, southly neighborhood, right?

And then Leo grows up confused because he's code-switching. Am I rich? Am I poor? What am I? Yeah. he's like code switching am i rich am i poor what am i yeah and then she's like went to harvard which is again another part of like the boston area story that they're trying to hit all the different kinds of boston accents in this film and i think they do come close to that i like that susan's like let's bring it back to the accents let's talk about what matters there. There's something in this movie that I think like, oh, why would you watch this movie? I think it would be for like Boston accents for sure. And to hear Brockton said, oh, no, but I agree. I mean, I think the class stuff in this movie, I feel like is one of the better handled or at least like considered things because I don't know I mean sometimes it kind of gets lost in the weeds but like with the Matt Damon character I think it is like an interesting and like salient point that like Scorsese is equipped to talk about of like you

know if you don't want to die in the class you were born in America what are the moral compromises that you're going to be asked? And so like Matt Damon is like trying to hold down his credibility where he's from, but also clearly wants, you know, like a nice apartment in the back bay, which you cannot achieve through moral channels. I've checked. It's not possible. You have to have ties to the mob to afford it. But I do think like from a class perspective with our main characters, this movie has a little more to say than it does about like justice or sort of other things it's trying to tackle at least. I want to talk a little bit more about the male feelings motif because... Boy feelings, boy feelings.

I wish the movie had explored it more thoughtfully. It like kind of touches on it, but it doesn't have anything that meaningful to say about it. Another waste of the therapist character because you're like, we're set up for boy feelings. And then we don't really get, at least not feelings and then we don't really get at least not through her we don't really get boy feelings well damon does have a lot of complicated feelings about firemen you know that he has very homophobic feelings about them specifically especially he has homophobic feelings at the same time he's like literally like has a very like subservient relationship to Jack Nicholson. There is this like male connection between the two of them.

Very, very fraught. So I mean, I don't really think there's a ton of insight to put on the language, the slurs that they use, because they really do overdo it. And that's not to deny Boston's history history of racism at all but i do think there is like if you're searching for male feelings it's like anguish about like firefighters that he addresses like primarily using homophobic slurs is like okay maybe there's something there to unpack which the movie doesn't really bother doing I think the closest it comes to like trying to say anything is that it's implied that he's experiencing erectile dysfunction in one scene

with Madeline where she's like, do you want to talk about last night? Colin, no response. Madeline, it's all right. Guys tend to make too big a deal of it. Colin, no response. Madeline, it's actually quite common. Colin, I gotta go to work. And then he leaves. And then in a later scene with Alec Baldwin, where he's talking to him about how it's like good for a man's image to be married. And Alec Baldwin's like, yeah, it lets people know that you have a dick that works. And Colin's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My dick, it totally works. And in fact, it's working overtime.

It's the workingest one. I talk about my dicks a lot. Like the first word that comes out of Mark Wahlberg's mouth is about like a child's genitalia. It's bad. It's bad. It does feel like over the top playing into regional stereotypes. While it is also true that people like that do exist. But in the world of this movie, every single person is like my dick, my dick, my dick.

Slur, slur, slur, slur, slur, slur, slur. Throw a phone at a woman's head. And it seems like they're kind of enjoying themselves while they're saying these things and that's what really gives me like concern especially one of the points of the movie where they show like a an asian cartel and the fact that the takeaway with the asian cartel is that they're more violent and they keep going about oh this is america that really that was off yeah it's not accurate either. No. Historically. Yeah. Weapons of choice. Yeah. It's not. Yeah. He's like in America, having a gun,

we don't feel like that, you know, adds inches to your dick. And it's like, that's absolutely what so many Americans think about gun ownership. So I don't know what he's talking about. And that's how everyone in the movie is acting. Like, ridiculous. There's no accuracy to that. There's no point to the story that somehow like the Asian gangsters are more violent than the horrific violence that we see in the film. Yes, especially because it's it's not even a cartel. They're like government workers in China. Are they? I mean, who knows? That's what they'd say in the movie. But I definitely think that like Asian organized crime is part of like our criminal history in Boston, for sure. That's been completely overlooked, but it is not depicted accurately

or sensitively here. Right. Or really at all, because it's just one scene and as usual like frank is dropping slurs and making broad statements about justice that are untrue and like you don't even get the chance to really meet those characters you're just told things about them especially in a film with mark walberg that makes me like uneasy yeah very very uneasy totally and there is a real culture of saying these things. I listened to like hours of FBI recordings of this state police officer turned bookie, like threatening death threats and this thing. And you hear these men basically talking

like they are just constant talk about their genitalia and slurs. It certainly happens, but. Right right this is just like not a subtle thoughtful movie i think it's maybe just my main feeling about it but yeah i mean as far as the erectile dysfunction thing i think first of all that like it just felt like thrown in there in a way that like just to justify shame and anger he was clearly already feeling and like this movie is not handled to say anything intelligent about that very real problem i at least appreciate that she was like being kind about it which i think most people are we have one emotional b and it's still

about his dick exactly exactly yeah i think this movie works as far as like a movie about like what Catholic guilt and shame can do to people across the class spectrum, but only if they're already Irish men. men repressing their emotion and how that manifests in the world and men seeking validation from other men and how that manifests and you see glimpses of it and you see suggestions of these things but i wish that had been a far greater theme or something that the movie explores more thoughtfully because it's all right there. They're like mentioning it, but the movie's just like, but we don't really actually have that much to say about it except that all these people are going to end up dead because they can't talk about their feelings.

That's the wild thing. Yeah, it's like all the ingredients are present, but it doesn't quite come together into something as thoughtful as other stuff. Is there anything else you wanted to touch on, Susan, before we go into ratings? Okay, I think if you're looking to study up on Whitey Bulger, my favorite book is actually by David Bowary, who's a BUR reporter, who wrote a book about Whitey Bulger that's online. It's not one of the, there's a lot of books. There's Black Mass, which is fantastic. There's a book by Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, but David Boeri's is my favorite

and no one knows about it. And if so, if you're looking for the history of Lady Bulger, I would say check it out. Cool. The movie, as we said, does not even come close to passing the Bechdel test because it would never think to put two women in the same room together. No, it really is like Vera Farmiga lives in a little space shuttle. She can travel between her apartment, Matt Damon's apartment and her office. But you're not going to see her anywhere other than in a room with a movie star. That's sort of where she tends to be. And then all the other women, I think that if you do occasionally get a name, they are being verbally abused by Jack Nicholson, by and large. Usually, yes. Yeah. Yes. As far as our nipple scale,

where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens i don't think it rates very highly i'm gonna give this movie one nipple i generally like martin scorsese and his movies and we love a Leonardo DiCaprio performance although does this movie even count because he wet in this movie I think he's wet from rainwater but he is not in his clothes in a body of water so like what's the even point of the movie if you're not gonna put Leonardo DiCaprio in a body of water while he's fully clothed. It's not canon. I don't know why they wouldn't put Leonardo DiCaprio in water. Anyway, one nipple for its failure to not really say anything that thoughtful about male feelings, just sort of presenting it, but then like not,

because the movie's too focused on the plot. Like, who's the guy? Who's this guy? Who's that guy? Which is the guy that I'm looking for? And I don't know that he's the guy yet. And it's just like so much of that. And at the expense of all of the character development, and it's especially noticeable for the one woman who's present in Madeline, who some vague things are relayed to us as far as her characterization but none of them really make sense and her choices and the guy again yes smart women go after dipshit horrible men it happens but also like why does she fuck both of these horrible men i don't know why she's making the choices she's making. So one nipple and I will give it to Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Yeah, I'm gonna go one as well. I get progressively more bummed out by this movie the more I see it. It definitely doesn't make sense as an oscar winning martin scorsese movie to me but i like i mean boston representation at an all-time high do they say brockton yes they do but for a movie that like you would think because of who's making it would have a lot to say about masculinity and justice i don't think that this movie really has a lot to say about either. And so

it's a B-tier Martin Scorsese movie for me. And there's absolutely nothing about women. And there's an acknowledgement of discrimination across class lines, across race lines. And there's certainly a lot of, it's like acknowledge that like homophobia and racism exists in this world but it doesn't have much to say about it outside of that there's a scene where matt damon tells anthony anderson like you're a black guy in boston you're already fucked which fair point but also like that is leading up to nothing it's just like saying it to acknowledge that racism exists in this. I don't know.

I just feel like there's a lot of setup that doesn't go anywhere. They hit you in the face with that, like again and again and again. And that's a very valid thing to want to talk about, but this movie doesn't want to talk about it. So I don't understand. It's really messy and is more propaganda-y than I remembered. And that's a bummer.

So I'm going to give it one nmer so I'm going to give it one nipple and I'm going to give it to Thelma Schoonmaker who edits all of Martin Scorsese's movies nice and also say that I think that the biggest red flag about DiCaprio is that he's like you don't have cats I like that I'm like all right oh yeah what the fuck was that he's like, you don't have cats. I like that. I'm like, all right. Oh, yeah. What the fuck was that? He's not for me. What was that comment about? I think it's conflating cats with lonely women. Maybe he's allergic. Maybe that's giving him too much credit. Yeah, it's true. Susan, what would you rate this movie? I'll give it to one. I'll give it okay. i'll give a nipple to like jack nicholson's outfits in this film and he he doesn't dress anything like whitey bulger and i went to an auction of all whitey bulger's things whitey just like wore old sneakers jack nicholson definitely shops at filing's basement like the old

boston basement it's not indicative of like the winter hill gang style, but it is indicative of like a mobster at a certain point of time. And I do respect the film for that. The costumes are good. The costumes are good accents better than most. And, but it would be hard for me to recommend this movie. It's just slur after slur if you wanted really dive into you know film history i'd say certainly watch it though and the acting is great at points not necessarily cohesively you know yeah there's like no person in this movie that

you can't find a better performance of them somewhere else. Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us and lending your expertise on Boston and New England area crime. Where can people follow you on social media, plug whatever you want to plug? Right now, I'm really focusing on the response to the reporting in my book, in which I reveal that members of law enforcement and the victims who are marijuana dealers were part of the same criminal milieu, which may be one reason why law enforcement didn't aggressively pursue this triple homicide, which had it been solved, could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombing. And there's been no explanation about that, no answers. People in power have not been held to account. So I'm taking notes on how those in power do respond to the reporting in my book on my new sub stack, Zalkind Notes.

But folks should go to my website, zalkind.info. You can buy the book. You can follow me on Instagram and watch the docuseries. Yay. Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. Our first crime reporter guest. It's my absolute pleasure.

Thanks for, yeah, gumshoeing through this with us. And you can find us all the normal places, Instagram. You can follow our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, where for five bucks a month you can get access to two additional episodes with caitlin and myself and we're going on tour soon that's right you can buy tickets to our shows on our shrek tanic tour so you will be seeing leonardo dicaprio in his clothes in water he's gonna be sopping wet he's gonna be so slippery that's slippery as tour yet so if you haven't got your tickets to that there's still tickets

available in most cities will be in london edinburgh manchester dublin and oxford for And Oxford for the St. Audio Podcast Festival. And our tickets are on Linktree slash Bechtelcast. Yes. So go there. And with that, we were shipping out to Boston. Let's now ship away from Boston. Bye. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus,

produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus, and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption, though returning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. Please stick to policy, don't get personal. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows. That we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better.

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