The Departed Film Analysis

Director Martin Scorsese’s Academy-Award winning movie The Departed shows Billy Costigan having a character epiphany. Billy early in the film is set on being a cop. He goes through the Academy and graduates as a trainee. He wants to be a cop so badly that he takes Captain Queenan and Sergeant Dignam deal to go undercover. He does so only after Dignam takes several jabs at his pride telling him he isn’t a cop and will never be a cop: “Hey asshole, he can't help you! I know what you are, okay? I know what you are and I know what you are not. I'm the best friend you have on the face of this earth, and I'm gonna help you understand something, you punk. You're no fuckin' cop!” This causes Billy to feel he has to prove himself as a cop thus undertaking the dangerous
At one point Billy says, “I'm going fucking nuts, man. I can't be someone else every fuckin' day. It's been a year of this. I've had enough of this shit!” The stress on being multiple different people at once really starts to get to Billy. The fear he has for Costello also played into his epiphany a bit later in the film. Billy’s biggest fear is that Costello will find out he is the rat and kill him. This weighs on him throughout the film: “million fucking felonies that you've seen him do, or I've seen him do? I mean, I mean, he murdered somebody, right? The guy fucking murders somebody, and you don't fucking take him! What are you waiting for, honestly? I mean, do you want him to chop me up and feed me to the poor? Is that what you guys want?” Costello even accuses Billy multiple times that he is the rat. Usually he didn’t do it directly just insinuated that he was the rat: “I got this rat, this gnawing, cheese eating fuckin' rat and it brings up questions... You know, see, Bill, like you're the new guy. Girlfriend... Why don't you stay in the bar that night I got your